When I retired in January 2012 I met with my past co-workers occasionally for lunch. We all missed our dear friends and remembered the various hobbies that each of us enjoyed.
Helen enjoyed searching through antique shops for treasures. She found an interesting patchwork quilt book that she bought for me. In looking through the book I found a small wall hanging that particularly caught my eye. It included rows of small applique hearts out of scraps. They were set up in blending colors from light to dark.
I had never made appliqued quilts before and thought is was about time I learned to do some appliques. I increased the size of the hearts in the pattern from the book to about five inches instead of the two inches. I searched my stash of fabric that I had been collecting for the past 30+ years from the late 1970’s and cut out five inch strips for the hearts and seven inch strips for the background.
I drew around the heart template on the five inch strips of fusible interfacing, then sewed these strips of fabrics and interfacing on the outline of the heart. I turned the heart inside out so the seems were inside using a small slit I had left in the middle if the interfacing, ironed the heart in the center on the seven inch square of contrasting fabric and then machine sewed the edge with a blanket stitch. I made about 400 of them and organized them in strips from light to dark to fit a king sized bed. It was so interesting to see the fabric that I had used on so many projects over the years. It kind of created a history of fabrics. This made such an impact of favorite fabrics that I think I will keep it once it is finished.
I had stacks of hearts left over that just didn’t fit into the quilt. I decided to make a few baby quilt: two in pink, one with aqua and yellow hearts and another with lavender and tan hearts. I did sell one of the pink ones on ETSY for $65.
My granddaughter Anya needed a summer quilt to match her drapes. I used drapery panel and added a strip across the top that included quarter circles from a wedding quilt I had made for her parents. I included some appliqued pink hearts that fit a little girl’s room perfectly.