I am so happy to share a new fun project with you today! I've been working on a quilty label collaboration with Sarah Hearts for the last couple months, and today I can finally share them with you! Meet the TCJ x Sarah Hearts Quilt Block Labels!
HOW CUTE!!! Sarah and I met in a creative business mentorship group and we immediately connected on multiple levels. We both are woman owned small businesses in the textiles world, love color, sewing and creating. And her daughter's name is JUNE!! I mean, come on, how perfect is our connection?! It was an easy yes when Sarah asked me if I wanted to collaborate on some TCJ labels. I said YEP YEP YEP!
I sent her some of my favorite quilt blocks I've designed over the years and photos of some of my most loved color palettes as a jumping off point. We landed on these four designs, the Meadowland block, Everett Star block, Star Adventure block and Goldie block. And then she put this color palette together based on my aesthetic and KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK.
I tossed around a few ideas of what I could sew - a pillow, a bag, a baby quilt or a wall hanging. And I thought it would be fun to use one of the patterns as the basis of the design but to just sew scrappy. I decided it would be fun to make a bunch of Gradient Everett Star Center units. These start blocks finish as 6" squares and then maybe turn it into a pillow. I made a couple mock ups of the general idea and I debated between the gradient star or the two tone star.
I landed on the gradient star because the color play was more fun and interactive. I didn't plan anything out, I just cut pieces out according to the pattern diagram and went star by star.
Sewing these stars up is so satisfying and fun. I batch sewed the entire process so it created gorgeous happy ribbons off the machine.
I love these colors so much. And then suddenly we had all 9 stars!
I lined them up in a grid of 3 x 3 and sewed them together. At this point, I was leaning away from making them into a pillow and instead making a wall hanging for our office!
I decided I wanted to add some kind of border and I toyed with a few ideas: stripes, small checks, super tiny 9 patches, etc. I landed on continuing the same sort of gradient strips in the center of the stars as one giant square gradient as the border.
I constructed the border sort of like a log cabin. I started by making the four different long striped pieced sections (1 - 4). Then I attached the left side first, trimming off the bottom excess to then attach to the bottom main strip. And so on and so forth. Here is a little graphic with more explanation for you.
It turned out so fun! I love it. And it confirmed that making it into a wall hanging was a great idea. I next decided I needed to quilt it up and had to rummage through all my supplies to find my walking foot, hera marker, thread, basting spray and batting. It has been a long time since I've quilted anything myself!
I started by marking 1" lines across the quilt top in a diagonal using my hera marker and ruler. For this first round of quilting, I chose a pretty grapemist thread color and used a 4.0 stitch length on my machine. After I finished quilting in one direction, I now marked 1" lines on the opposite diagonal to create a cross hatch. When I finished, it felt lacking. I decided because all the piecing is so tiny, I needed more dense quilting. The scale of the piecing in relation to the scale of the quilting felt off.
For the second round, I went back through and marked lines with the hera marker in between the already quilting lines at 1/2". This time I changed up the thread to be a neon yellowish green color and repeated the same process as before. It turned out AMAZING. And created the cutest little 1/2" squares all over the wall hanging. I was thrilled.
I bound the wall hanging in an old thin stripped fabric I had in my stash. It adds the perfect touch of classic black and white to a bright quilt. And of course I had to add a label! I chose the Everett Star block label for obvious reasons. ;)
They really do scream the THEN CAME JUNE aesthetic. I added a label to some of the other quilts I have been recently finishing up! I am shocked I haven't been adding labels for years, it is the perfect finishing touch!
