Go! Baby Cutter

One of the good things about being a top-55 quilt blogger (aside from all the nice comments from you readers) is I got a free Go! Baby cutter in the mail.

 I agreed to try it out and blog about it. I asked for templates for Stars, Hearts & DOTS. Here's my first experiments with the hearts.

I cut a lot of 10 x 5" rectangles from my red scrap bag and cut a lot of hearts, 4 layers at a time.

Then I cut a lot of 10" x 5" rectangles out of freezer paper and cut 6 layers of freezer paper.

I do my applique with freezer paper backs.

I pressed the medium-size freezer paper hearts (2") to the large-size fabric hearts (3").

Using a glue stick I folded and glued the fabric over the freezer paper.

This is a larger seam allowance than I usually use but I don't see why it won't work.

I slashed in the V curves at the top and the U curves towards the bottom point and that was the only cutting I had to do.

Now what to do?

Usually I start with a pattern and cut the shapes.

Here I start with the shapes and experiment with pattern.

I looked for patterns with heart shapes in my Encyclopedia of Applique.

There is a whole page of patterns based on four hearts in the center.

This design has many variations. The oldest published name I found for it was "Double Heart" in a newspaper clipping from about 1900.

I might cut some little stems but it works pretty well in this mockup (I just laid the hearts on fabric)

& I like that little negative space between the hearts.

Once I thought of negative space I remembered this pattern, a heart wreath that makes a star or sunburst in the negative space.

A wreath of 8 hearts makes a star in the center

Twelve Hearts

I auditioned several fabrics down at my fabric shop Sarah's.

Wendy said this needed something in the middle and suggested a large-scale print.

That was a great idea.

I liked this one best and bought a yard.

More later.....