Double Star

Yet another Heartstrings quilt top... this one again from the blocks people in my guild made for block of the month. I picked all the brightest ones I could find for the stars, eight with a red stripe for the points, and 8 with a blue stripe for the centers. Some of these blocks had center strips that were too large or too small, but in this layout, it's not as noticeable, I think:


The blue is actually a snowflake print, bought on sale, but the snowflakes are much smaller than the dark blue bubble shapes or the white asterisk shapes you may see, so I think I'm getting away with it. :)

One more blue border on the two long sides, do you think? It could stand to be bigger, so I COULD put even another border all the way around, red, maybe? It's going to be donated to a nursing home, so bright and cheerful is good, and any sizes from wheelchair to crib to twin are needed. I only used 24 heartstrings blocks on this one, so I still have plenty left to keep on playing with (and I'm getting more donated every time I meet with the guild members.) Those side borders made from the half blocks are a GOOD place to use the slightly 'maverick' blocks. I cut the red centered ones in half with the stripe leaning to the top right, and the blue centered ones with the center stripe leaning to the top left, so I got the zig zag effect.

I got another bit added to all 100+ of my bright squares that were in the pizza box, AND got all of them ironed, made another 6 kaleidoscope blocks for the king size quilt, AND got those ironed. I really appreciate all the name suggestions for it too! I haven't decided on a name yet, I like the beach references, because that tan/beige does look like sand with water, but I also like the windmill and diamond ideas a lot too. Thanks, everyone, for the super suggestions!

More Heartstrings Designs

They were talking about the busy-ness of the heartstrings blocks over on the Heartstrings Yahoo group pages, and someone mentioned that you could take a completed heartstrings block, match it to a square of plain fabric, stitch it down the middle, and make two blocks - like a half square triangle.

Then they were wondering what kinds of designs you could make with half of a heartstrings block. I couldn't resist. Off to EQ! First I tried a simple little star:


Then rotated the hsts and changed all the blocks to hsts, and changed the color of the triangles to springy green:


You could actually do any block that has half square triangles and/or whole squares for this. The depression block layout looks great too!

Because you lose some of the size when you cut your heartstrings block in half diagonally and re-sew it, it'd make sense to trim your NEW blocks to 8½ inches. If you're mixing whole heartstrings blocks with them, of course they'd have to be trimmed to the same size. This would be a good thing to do with blocks that somehow became too small or got lopsided. Then I added some blocks to my layout and played with making this one in pink:


But all of those blue whole heartstrings blocks I've used around the edges would have to be trimmed, you'd be wasting a lot, trimming an inch off them, unless you made some smaller ones on purpose. Better not use many whole blocks, I thought. Then I came up with these designs that don't use as many whole heartstrings blocks, just 4 in the center. First one with a denim colored half block:


Then my favorite, some turquoise:


And finally, one in navy blue:


Which layout should I try first?

Still Quilting

*blushes*

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but sometimes life just gets in the way. :)

I have still been working on quilts, just nothing worth picture posting about - I'll bet if you guys see more in-progress pix of the depression/kaleidoscope one, you'll scream! I have got quite a few of the blocks cut and ready to sew though.

Lately I've been just coming home from work and either making web pages or doing mindless heartstrings blocks. My guild is doing heartstrings blocks as our block of the month, and I want to make a good showing. So some nights I sit and cut strips, and some nights I sew.

But of course, I have also gotten my EQ fix in:



I think I'll try the one with the red strings and blue heart, just to be different. :) Besides, I have a lot of red strings made, but not many blue, so it'll be easy to make the 8 blue-string half pastel blocks and two full pastel for the heart.

Even though I haven't been commenting on many blogs, I have been looking and reading. Happy sewing, everyone!