Warm Hearted Quilt - A Vintage Quilt Palette

I've been itching for some hand quilting. And, I almost didn't pay any attention to that itch. It's quicker to machine quilt, and I do enjoy machine quilting! If I had, then it would been done, and I could have moved onto the next thing. But, I wasn't ready to move onto the next thing. I wanted to stay with this thing a while longer. This Warm Hearted Quilt was made by my mum and me from one of the Warm Vintage fabric bundles I have in the shop. 

A couple of months ago, I cut all the shapes from the fat 16ths (4-6 hearts per piece), basted them, started stitching the hearts together, and then followed my Evensong muse. I asked my mum if she wanted to keep going with this one and she said yes! Isn't it beautiful?

For the last week or so, I've had my head in my favourite quilt history books for another project I'm dreaming up. Some of my favourites are the English paper pieced quilts like these below made in the mid-late 1800s in Australia and England. We often think of vintage quilts as being brown and cream, or the pastels of the 1930s, but these are so vibrant! I just love the pops of pink and red on the black background, don't you? Both were English paper pieced using scrap paper from catalogues, shipping timetables, and newspapers, and scrap fabric. If you look closely at the 6-point stars, you'll see some lovely fussy cutting! 

And so, when Mum sent back this nearly finished Warm Hearted quilt top, I just wanted to take it in a while longer. I wanted to mull over these beautiful vintage quilts and my new ideas, and the amazing legacy of beauty and creativity handed down. I wanted to enjoy creating texture, to turn it from a flat design, like a picture on a page, to something three dimensional and soft and inviting.

I decided this was the perfect quilt to use up my scrap perle cotton collection. I often use Perle 8 cotton for hand quilting, and I have so many almost-used-up spools that I never touch because I tend to just quilt in one colour. But, this colourful quilt and the old-timey palette felt like just the serendipity I was waiting for. I ended up using six different colours in my quilting. It felt so satisfying to use up those spool ends! I used the vertical seams as guidelines and quilted in straight lines between them, spreading out the colours across the quilt. I didn't take any photos of this process, but I took a fun little video and shared it on  Instagram.

I always feel so grateful when I give myself time. Some of these vintage quilts I love took 3 years or more. Collecting scrap paper, cutting templates, slowly adding fabric scraps as they came across them. Why do I get stuck trying to whip through my list as fast as I can? What race am I trying to win? I'm so glad I gave myself extra time with Warm Hearted. 

Now, it's not just another finished quilt crossed off the list, added to the pile, expunged from the noise in my head. It's something I made, cared for, took my time with, something that now tells a story. And that's what makes quilts so precious, wouldn't you agree?