Here is the center panel for the charity quilt for Maternity Homes of Fox Valley. I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. I think that I did a pretty good job of balancing the color and value of the hands as I arranged them. The hearts were an unexpected feature. Some of the hands that were drawn onto the Pellon Wonder Under Fusible Webbing were drawn on the glue side. You would think that it would not be an issue, however, that meant that the pencil marks ended up between the glue and the fabric. So for the two or 3 hands that were ironed onto light colored fabric, I could see the name written on the hand. So was born the heart idea. I then spread some more hearts around to balance out the look. I got the heart-in-hand block after all!
My plan is to do an irregular piano key boarder similar to the Heartfelt quilt that I finished a couple of weeks ago. I don't have any thing else that would be appropriate and it will bring all the colors out to the border. The second border will be white again and I may put more hands in it, but it will mostly depend upon what I have left over after creating the piano keys.
For the binding, I am going to make it striped from the hand dyed fabric. I need to remember to cut that before I start any hands for the border--I certainly don't want to get done and not know what I will use for binding. I will have no choice but to purchase fabric for the back. I don't have enough hand dyed to make the back so I will buy a white muslin. Hancock's of Paducah has a bleached muslin in a 108 inch width. That will be wide enough so that there will not have to be a seam in the back.
Happy quilting!
