Heart of the Home, Four Seasons Version 🌱🌳🍂❄️

Is there anything more fun than small, playful quilts for a great cause? In this case, the organization Furnishing Hope…thanks to Jamie Fingal’s work, hundreds of art quilters have created 14” square home-themed scenes to brighten the homes of formerly-homeless women and children.

This has become a project of my heart, and I cannot resist creating a few each time I finish a larger, more complex project. These pieces were inspired by Alison Glass’ marvelous Sun Print series…a rainbow stack of fat quarters begging to become something!

First step, as always: Mistyfuse all of the fabrics https://www.mistyfuse.com/

…then chose the “sky” and “ground” fabrics, creating the basic background…

…and began to cut the elements of each scene. An organizer like this can really come in handy!

I find it really helpful to precut multiples of what I might use…my cat, of course!, and houses (4” x 6”), windows (1” square), leaves and trees (freecut), etc. This enables me to lay out all of the backgrounds and play with which color combinations are most pleasing to the eye. Frequently, using a black and white photo will help you to decide if you have enough contrast in your composition.

Fuse all, using your nonstick Goddess Sheet https://www.mistyfuse.com/collections/goddess-sheets so that you don’t fuse anything to your pressing surface ;)…and your little quilts are ready when you are. Next step, thread…oooh one of my favorite parts ;)! I enjoy understanding each fabric designer’s palette by selecting the Aurifil shades that are closest to their hues; Alison’s pinkish-purple is completely different from Tula Pink’s pinkish-purple.

By outlining each component of the scene, you can add a great deal of surface interest. I always use monofilament in my bobbin to accommodate the frequent top thread color changes, but the quilting is still visible on the backs of these pieces. These quilts are a fantastic way to become comfortable with free motion quilting – small enough to be very manageable and perfect canvases for pebbling, lassoing, etc.