Heart & Soul

 A big part of why quilters love quilting is because it's something we put a big piece of ourselves into--creativity, time, effort, and love. It's aptly fitting then, that this beauty is named "Heart & Soul," as that's exactly what goes into each quilt we make!

"Heart & Soul" designed by Mischele Hart;
featured in Quiltmaker January/February 2014

Mischele Hart designed this twin-size quilt for Quiltmaker magazine using Jackie Robinson's He Still Loves Me collection in the blue colorway. Keep reading to find out why she uses hearts in her design and how she came up with the unique border treatment!

What inspired this design?

This design idea began when I saw the artwork for the He Still Loves Me collection designed by my friend, Jackie Robinson. This collection is very appealing in a whimsical and romantic way.  The heart blocks in the design?  A natural!  Because my last name is Hart, I really have fun putting hearts in quilts in all sorts of ways.

How did you decide on the layout, working in the single hearts with the four-patch hearts?

The single heart blocks were an afterthought when I realized that I needed to fill in the spaces left after setting the large four-patch hearts on point.  They worked!  Whew.

The border is so unique! Why/how did you decide to do something like that?

I love, LOVE to design and play with Electric Quilt but usually don’t use the block library, preferring to draw my own blocks even if they are traditional blocks. I do my best thinking when drawing lines, deleting them, changing grids, trying different value combinations and so on. I try, in most quilts, to come up with a block I have never seen before.

A long time fan and student of Mary Ellen Hopkins, I like to use simple geometric shapes in new combinations to create something unique.  The simply pieced four-patch border block was devised when I was working on a way to visually create a weaving border in a diagonally set quilt. I love the border, too!

What do you like best about the He Still Loves Me fabric?

The He Still Loves Me collection is comprised of prints that can stand alone or come together in appealing ways. While the large daisies were the chosen star of my quilt, the daisies had some eye-catching supporting cast members.

It’s wonderful when an artist who is a quilter designs fabric because that artist truly understands the importance of varying the scale and activity in the prints, varying the values in the prints and so on, so that you can pull together a beautiful quilt from a single collection. Jackie hit the ball out of the park with this collection.

Why did you choose to work with the blue colorway?

I cheerfully admit that the blue colorway works best in my home.

What is you favorite part about the quilt?

The border.  I’ll be using that again!

What was most challenging about designing or making this quilt?

The border was the most challenging to design. There were LOTS of misfires!  Cutting and sewing the quilt was soothing.

Can you talk about how this was machine quilted? 

My friend Susan Scheer machine quilted this quilt and came up with the idea.  She was inspired by the daisy print in the border and used a simple single daisy design that really “bloomed” when four of them came together in the interior of the quilt. Susan is a wonderfully talented, multi-faceted artist.

See the entire He Still Loves Me collection here.

Find the February/March 2014 issue of Quiltmaker here.