Sew Along

I’m so happy to invite you to my first Sew-Along Connecting Hearts.

I have wanted to host a sew-along for the longest time but for some reason I held back fearing no one would want to join me, I wasn’t sure what type of sew-along to run, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the time to host one, and so on and so on. Basically I just made excuses.

Until now! On a whim the other day I decided to see if anyone would be interested in joining me for a Scrappy Jewel Heart Quilt sew along, and I had a really positive response with lots of you wanted to jump in and stitch with, and do here we are.

Connecting Hearts Sew-Along Details

Start Date: May 1st

Finish Date: August 31st

What we are stitching: Jewel Hearts Quilt

The Particulars

The idea is to make jewel heart blocks and sew them together to make a quilt. You can use any size jewel and make any size quilt. Your heart quilt can be completely scrappy, or you could use a selection of fabrics from a particular range. Your quilt can have a specific colour scheme, or no colour scheme. You can use just one colour, or create a rainbow or ombre effect.

I can’t wait to start stitching together with you and making my own Connecting Hearts Quilt.

Until then, Happy Stitching.

Miss Leela x

Step One – Templates & Fabric

There are two main things you’ll need for this sew-along, Jewel Paper Templates and your fabric scraps. If you’re planning on making a quilt then I recommend using paper templates that are either 1”, 1.5” or 2”.

The measurement of a jewel is taken from the three shorter sides and the two longer sides are double the short side. For example on a 1” Jewel template each of the three short edges will measure one inch, and the two longer edges will each measure two inches.

The amount of templates you need is completely dependent on how big you plan on making your quilt. Of course as you stitch your hearts together I recommend removing the papers as you go as this will minimize weight as you stitch and it means you can reuse the papers to make more jewels as you go.

When it comes to selecting your fabric the one thing you need to consider is that you need enough fabric to cover two jewel papers to make your heart.

If you’re going for a scrappy look be sure to select fabrics that are a mix of high and low volume, different tones and that harmonize together. Mixing florals with stripes, ginghams and spots works really well and don’t be afraid to mix in solid fabrics too. It’s totally fine to choose a specific colour scheme and still achieve a lovely scrappy look.

One thing to consider when cutting your fabric is the direction of the fabric pattern. If it’s an organic all over pattern you should be fine to cut out your jewel any which way. If it’s directional then you are going to want to consider how the pattern is going to sit on the jewel once your heart has been pieced.

The top two hearts here show an all over organic pattern, the first is a very small scale, the second a little bigger. The bottom two hearts show how a larger pattern can look. You may want to swap your hearts around to get the most pleasing look when it comes to large scale patterns.

The heart blocks here show you how to place your templates on a directional gingham pattern. You can see just by switching the jewels around you can get two very different looks. You may wan to take care and try and pattern match your jewels also.

Here you can see how to place your templates on a directional stripe pattern. Again, you can see just by switching the jewels around you can get two very different looks.

Step Three – Basting

You can choose to thread baste or glue baste your jewels. I prefer to glue baste so I’m going to share that technique with you today. Whether you are glue or thread basting, the important thing to remember is to baste each jewel the same way so that the little ears nest neatly together.

1 & 2 – Start by gluing down the bottom seam of the jewel.

3 – Now we are going to work our way around anti-clockwise and glue down the next short edge seam. (For thread basting I suggest folding the bottom seam down, then the next seam down, same as glue basting, and place a double stitch in the corner of these two edges)

4 – Glue the first long edge seam down. (For thread basting, fold the long edge seam down and place a tacking stitch in the corner of the seam with the short edge)

5 – Glue the next long edge seam down. (For thread basting, fold the second long edge taking care to make sure the fist long edge stays folded on the back neatly and make a tacking stitch through the seams of the jewel tip)

6 – Glue the last short edge seam down. (For thread basting, fold the last short edge down and do a tacking stitch in the seam corner where the long and short edges meet, then do another taking stitch through the seams where the two short edge corners meet. To finish weave your needle and thread through the very bottom seam a couple of times to secure the thread and snip.)

Step Four – Piecing

When piecing jewel hearts I like to start where the short edges meet as it is easiest to line them up here and stitch down the long edge to the jewel tip, or bottom of the heart block.

I always do a locking knot (figure eight knot) at the start and end of each stitched edge. Once I have stitched down the long edge I place a knot and then weave my needle and thread back up through the folded seam a little before cutting my thread.

Here is my heart block stitched together.

Here is the back of my heart block, you can see that the little ears are sitting neatly against each other. This is why we make sure we baste each jewel the exact same way, so that the ears neatly nest together and sit flat.

Step Five – Connecting Your Heart Blocks

To connect your heart blocks and create your quilt you can stitch them together using one of the methods below:

Strip Piecing – for this method you would sew one long strip of hearts together the width you want your quilt to be. You then start at one end of this strip and piece the next row of heart blocks. You can also just stitch all the rows individually and then piece the rows onto each other.

Randomly – for this method you would just start with one heart block and then stitch heart blocks around it and continue to work your out and around. This is more of an organic way to piece your blocks together.

Block Piecing: for this method you would stich small sections or ‘blocks’ of hearts together and then piece theses blocks together to form your quilt.

This diagram shows how your jewel hearts will be laid out once stitched together. You will see that every second row of hearts is upside down. The dashed lines indicate where you will trim the sides of your quilt when finishing off for adding borders or binding.

This diagram shows the individual stitched heart block rows before they are pieced together.

This diagram shows how you can use 60 degree diamond shapes to connect your jewel hearts so that they all sit the right way up.

This diagram shows the individual stitched heart block rows and diamonds before they are pieced together.