Refracted heart
Heart symbols are are used for love and passion and all those romantic ideas. But hearts really stand for so much more, really, for life itself.
Hearts are on my mind at the moment, but not so much for romance! Over the last four weeks (yep, right over Christmas) my husband discovered he has a genetic heart condition and needs an operation. He’s been fit and healthy all his life which in retrospect is great, because it’s probably kept him alive. But right now, as I write, he’s seeing the surgeon and with any luck will shortly have a date (not the romantic kind, a date for surgery). So, hearts, …. don’t take them for granted.
Anyway with any luck 2021 will be a Much Better Year, though like many we face a very uncertain future with work and health. Which brings me to family and relationships. You know, it’s so easy to take our fortunate circumstances for granted and forget how much we value the people in our lives. With all our imperfections, our relationships with our friends and families are still the most precious things that we have. They are our treasure, and they hold our hearts.
So, for this month, my block pattern is a refracted heart. Refraction is when light is bent, like through a prism, making all the colours of the rainbow and I like to think of love being bent through our hearts and sent back into the world into many different ways. In its way, it’s also a fractured heart, because nobody gets through life without their heart getting bashed around a bit. But that’s ok, we still send love back into the world.
I pieced the heart using foundation paper piecing. The reason I like the fpp option with templates is because you can stack different coloured fabrics together, use the templates to cut through all layers, and then rearrange to create different coloured hearts.
I only made one heart, and I cut it out of just one pink fabric that shaded from light to dark, so instead of needing 4 fabrics in shades of pink, I just needed one, and I arranged the templates so the lighter ones were down one end of the fabric and the darker ones were on the darker part of the fabric.
The heart is made from four different sections that get sewn together at the end. I like this because you can sew all the sections at the same time and there are only a few pieces in each section, so fewer trips to the ironing board, and as the sections can be chain pieced, you get a quicker result.
step 1: print and cut the templates, sort into colours, cut the fabric. templates are face up on the right side of fabric.
step 2: print and cut the fpp templates and fold along all seam lines. Place first two pieces of fabric right side together on the fpp template and check the placement by folding the paper back along the seam line and holding it up to the light. You should be able to check that the second piece of fabric is going to end up in the correct position ashen it’s sewn, and ironed open.
step 3: press seam open and add a new piece. Repeat till all fpp sections are complete.
step 4: trim fpp sections so you have a neat quarter inch seam allowance all the way round. Pin fpp sections together matching the ends of seam lines
Now, don’t forget to check out all the other wonderful patterns and enjoy your quilting.
