Time out from Chinese Coins

I took time out from HeartStrings sewing to do a few personal projects. Yesterday we hosted DGD#2’s second birthday party. My DD previously brought over the doll crib she had growing up, and a doll cradle my father made for her. She asked me to “redo” them to match DGD’s room. I took apart my DGD’s crib's dust ruffle to make the dust ruffle, mattresses, and pillows for both doll beds. Of course, she took them home yesterday after the party before taking a picture. I also made a quilt for the doll, but true to form, it was only partially assembled when given. Tonight I’ve finished the top, so will quilt it soon and send it home for the bigger doll bed. It's made from scraps from DGD's quilts. Oh, no, I just noticed the error as I've posted the picture. I guess I'll be doing a bit of frogging tomorrow. It's made out of 1" finished squares.

I’ve been thinking about the funky caterpillar pattern – still waiting to hear from the second tester before I post it – but I needed a dose of brights. I remembered the rest of the HeartStrings purple project blocks I had here, so decided to put them up on the design wall. I’m playing with a strippy zigzag setting. My DH pronounced it “jarring”, which means it is just right for me. I auditioned a toned purple for the strips, but it just died.

This set of 48 blocks is from last year’s HeartStrings special project – regular HS blocks - but with purple centers. The grouping Sue sent me seems to be all from one person, and the blocks included a lot of novelty / kid stuff. Some of them were used for the HS quilt with the string hearts.

I’ve read comments from HeartStrings block makers saying it is mindless sewing when they want to “veg” for a while doing something calming. I don’t think the person who made these blocks did so without thinking about them. The first set of 24 I used had all the same centers. It was a bright violet novelty, with red, yellow, lime green, orange, and white hearts in them. Almost all of the rest of the strings reflected those colors. Many of the blocks had both the center strip and the next strip out of the same fabric for 3-4 blocks. It really helped to emphasize the barn raising set I used for them. It was just a joy to sew with these blocks. Thanks to the unknown HeartStringer for making them so special. I hope this second quilt will be special as well. I think it is really great to be involved with this group of quilters who do so much for charities.

Happy quilting,

Becky

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