Blue One Block Wonder

 I tried to finish up a lot of UFOs during the pandemic.  Here is one of them:

I bought the fabric for this OBW in a quilt shop in southwest Virginia.  It must have been old or not selling well because it wasn't very expensive.  I bought 7 panels, 6 for the front, and one for the back.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this quilt. I may ask my family if anyone is interested in it.  I think it is really pretty, but I don't have space for all the quilts I make.  

One thing that my longarmer pointed out to me:  it is bearding a little on the back.  I used Dream Cotton batting (100% cotton), but I am not sure of the manufacturer of the dark blue fabric since I bought it so long ago.  I don't think anyone but a quilter would notice the bearding.  I washed the quilt, and it didn't seem to make it any worse. I've made lots of quilts and never had one beard before.  I don't think it would have even shown if the backing had been a print.  I had considered using black batting with this quilt, but the white in the flowers stopped me.  

Hearts of Hope, Top Done

 I finished putting the borders on Hearts of Hope today.  It took me a while to decide what to do.  My quilt is 7 X 10 hearts (odd X even).  Bonnie's quilt is 7 X 7 ( odd X odd), so the border she designed will not turn the corners properly on my quilt.  I saw someone else with an odd X even quilt who did use the string borders that Bonnie designed, and I did not like the way their corners looked.  My choice was either to design my own borders or to just use straight borders.

I decided the quilt was busy enough without the string-pieced borders.  The person who will receive the quilt will not love it any less for having plain, unpieced borders, so that's what I chose to use.  I had to buy fabric for the two neutral border since my neutral stash is very low, but I found the blue fabric in my stash.  I also found backing in my stash.  I am trying to use up the big pieces I have.  Somehow I made an over abundance of the yellow/blue squares that go around the hearts.  I thought about using them on the back, but there are a lot of seams in this quilt, and it didn't make sense to add more seams with more little squares on the back.

This quilt is  throw size, 74" X 56".  

I had problems with one of the neutral fabrics I bought fraying.  I have NEVER had this much fraying before.  I have heard people complain about Kona fraying, but it is nothing compared to the fabric I bought.  It was made by Marcus, and I have looked high and low online trying to find it but I can't.   All I can say is it will be a long time before I buy any more fabric by Marcus.  I got it at a quilt shop, but it definitely wasn't quilt shop quality. Fortunately, I only bought 1/4 yard of it.

Hearts of Hope, Part Two Done

 I got all the hearts put together today.  I think I am going to give this quilt to a friend when it is finished.  Her walls are yellow, and her furniture is blue.  This quilt has UVA as well as VCU fabric in it, and her kids went to UVA and VCU.

This week I need to get all the hearts sewn together and start on the borders.  I'm a little tired of string piecing right now, so I'm glad to have a week off from that.

Hearts of Hope Sew Along

 I started Bonnie Hunter's Hearts of Hope a couple of weeks ago.  This is a free pattern on her website, but she asks for a donation to  Quilters for Ukraine Go Fund Me. The last time I checked, they had raised almost $80,000.  Here's a link to the first Hearts of Hope post.  https://quiltville.blogspot.com/p/hearts-of-hope-sew-along.html  Sorry, it has been so long since I posted a link, I am not sure how to make it clickable.

So far, I have finished the first week's units.  I am about half way through the second week's.  I lost 3 days of sewing last week because I was sick. 

Because I can't count, I ended up making extra blue units (the top of the hearts).  Then I had to make extra yellow units, so all the tops would have a bottom.  My quilt is going to be rectangular,  7 x 10 blocks instead of Bonnie's 7 x 7 blocks.