Quilt Block Challenge – Ruby Heart

 

Every year our quilt guild does a Block challenge.  You are given a background fabric and an accent fabric to create a 12 1/2 inch block.  You can piece it, applique it, anything you want, it just has to be in the theme of the challenge which is usually our Quilt Show theme.  For this year our theme is Ruby Red Celebration for our 40^th quilt show.

When I heard the theme, I immediately thought of the jewel Ruby partly because it is my birth stone.  My second thought was of a TV show I had recently watched which contained a ruby in the shape of a heart as part of the story line.  And since I am rather found of hearts, I thought I would make a red pieced heart for my block. 

What I thought of was a foundation pieced heart, not really a paper pieced one, but more of the crazy quilt style of foundation piecing.  So my first job was to find a heart shape I liked.  I wanted a very rounded one so I enlarged my Heartfully Cheryl logo and chose the biggest heart to use.  I decided to create the heart and then applique it to the white background fabric.

With this kind of foundation piecing, it is good to use a sew-in interfacing or some light weight muslin.  You don’t want anything too heavy or it will make the appliqueing difficult to do and make the whole block too thick. I decided to use the interfacing. 

The first thing I did was  cut out the interfacing.  I traced the heart design and cut it about ¼ inch from the traced line.  Even in applique you have to have a seam allowance.

The next step was to gaver my ruby fabrics.  I decided I wanted the fabric in different shades of red but with very little other colors.  So I picked those reds that would appear from a distance to be a solid

So I have my heart pattern and my fabric, the next step is to sew the heart.  And that will be in the next blog so stay tuned.

 ©2022 Cheryl Fillion