Cross My Heart

I continue to work on BRD deadlines and projects, but as I promised myself, I am still making time to sew and quilt....it keeps me refreshed and definitely lowers my stress level. I am still playing with the newest AccuQuilt dies - specifically, the dies in the fall "stash buster" collection. There were twelve new GO! dies in the last release...including the one I have been focusing on for a couple days - the GO! Snowball (6" Finished). The classic snowball block is quite versatile - and although from a distance, it can look like a round circle, it is actually an octagon with a triangle in each of the four corners. I decided to work on a Valentine quilt using the 6" snowball blocks for an appliqué base - I didn't use a pattern, just created/designed my own - which I titled "Cross My Heart". I dug through my fabric stash (fabrics are mostly from the Winsome Collection by Nancy Halvorsen for Benartex) and started out by cutting and piecing nine snowball blocks...the the GO! Snowball  die makes it incredibly easy to make this block with little fabric waste...the octagon and the coordinating triangles are on the same die...and the dog ears are cut off the triangles, allowing the corners to match up perfectly for piecing! All the measuring and calculating is done for you...

After piecing the snowball blocks, I went through my AccuQuilt dies and choose some fun Valentine shapes. I did all the appliqué stitching on my sewing machine using various sizes of blanket stitch....then added 2" strip borders and cornerstones. 

And after quilting and binding, here's the final result...my 21" x 21" Cross My Heart wall hanging...I added a sleeve to the back and it's hanging in time for Valentine's Day!

Tonight it is back to model stitching...it is still bitter cold, so I plan to curl up in my warm stitching nest with my favorite quilt and spend some time with my needle...