Gotta Have Heart by JeanAnn F

“Gotta Have Heart”

20” x 20”

By JeanAnn Fenrich, playing with fiber and fabrics in Scandia, Minnesota.

In my mind caretakers, defenders, explorers, teachers and leaders are bold and brave.  At their core these people have strong, passionate hearts.

A special co-worker, gave me a Celtic Quilting book  by Gail Lawther many years ago. (Thank you Tori, M!) I have paged through it so many times wanting to create my own piece with an elaborate knot design. This week’s challenge was my opportunity to be brave and tackle a Celtic heart knot and combine it with some bold colors. I broke apart one of the book’s designs to make a single heart.

The green background and binding are “Grunge” for Moda.  The heart is a wild-colored batik and the orange and yellow flange pieces are single-color batiks.

Wanting to weave the heart in true Celtic style, I made 96” of a single-fold bias strip. The bias strip was tacked into place with a fabric glue before sewing to the background. An extra (2 layers) of batting is under the heart and all the negative spaces were quilted with different colors of thread: yellow in the center, orange and then red in the outer most spaces.

Another thin layer of batting was added under the entire piece. A soft green thread was used to echo quilt the heart all the way to the edges. The piece was trimmed and then three very narrow flanges were added (yellow, the heart batik , and orange) before the binding finished this small wall hanging.