Day 61 – Queen of Hearts

In celebration of the new Alice in Wonderland flick coming out next year in March, I decided we needed soon visit from the Queen of Hearts:

This is actually the second heart inspired design. The first was Heart Paisley.

It just goes to show that quilting designs are so often based off of symbols. You change the symbol, you change the design!

Just wait – the rest of the week we will be visited by the Jack of Clubs, King of Diamonds, and of course, we can’t forget the Ace of Spades!

Inspiration – It’s a terrible habit, but I often doodle at the dinner table. Josh tolerates it to a degree, a least until my bits of paper designs cover so much of the table you can’t see the wood underneath!

One evening I was doodling several designs and Josh said “What about playing cards? I’m sure there are lots of symbols on them.”

That’s all it takes for me! I’m also flipping through a pack of tarot cards, so who knows what I’ll come up with next, maybe the Devil of Pentacles? How fun!

Difficulty Level – Intermediate. The difficulty in this design lies in keeping your hearts looking like hearts.

Design Family – Stacking. This is a slightly new type of design formed by chaining the same symbol repeatedly until the space is filled completely. You’re not going for a 100% totally filled area. There can definitely be space between the hearts as they will not fit perfectly together.

I’ve heard it said that in face painting, you paint a kid’s face and ask five people what it looks like. If the five people recognize the animal, that means you’ve passed the “what the heck is it?” test and you have a good face painting design.

The same rule applies to quilting. If your hearts look more like bubbly amoebas, no one is going to understand why you’re stitching them onto a Valentine’s Day quilt. Keep your hearts looking like hearts with two fairly evenly shaped humps and a point on the other end.

Directional Texture – All Directions. This design creates a good overall texture for any area of your quilt. Just be careful not to let your thread play up too much in the traveling areas because it can distract from the hearts themselves.

Suggestions for Use – I would definitely use this design both small and expanded much bigger. It’s a bit more time consuming than Heart Paisley, but if your hearts were bigger, they would cover more surface area faster.

let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

Day 63 – King of Diamonds

Day 64 – Ace of Spades