Welcome to the newest Cyber-Sew on The Quilting Board. This site will help guide you while you create an appliqué quilt called "Affairs of the Heart." The quilt is from the book, "Affairs of the Heart" by Aie Rossman, published by AQS. This will be a sew-a-long. You will make blocks and keep your blocks. No swapping is required.

This group will be for support, encouragement, and friendship all while we are making our blocks. The main thread will be for questions, comments, and chat about what we are doing. Remember that we quilters are nice, generous and friendly people. No flaming will be tolerated. I will be here as the schedule maker (aka: host) and PatriceJ will be our moderator.

Posting of pictures of completed blocks is encouraged. Threads for pictures will appear under the heading "Affairs of the Heart Cyber Sew". Look for the Block numbered thread of the picture you are posting.

In order to participate in the cyber-sew, you will need to purchase the book. There will be no sharing or posting of the patterns as they are all copyright protected. Here are several links to sites where you can purchase this book. I'm sure there are lots of other sites, or perhaps your LQS will have it.

http://www.americanquilter.com/books...il.php?id=6517

http://www.amazon.com/Applique-Maste...3974979&sr=1-1

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Sear...eart&x=63&y=16

This quilt, sewn as per the book, finishes up at 62" square. Some quilters may wish to make a larger quilt. By enlarging the block size, you can make your quilt larger without having to design more blocks. The block patterns in the book finish at 7" square. If you decide to enlarge the blocks, you will need to also enlarge the sashings & inner borders.

The book shows the appliqué method of needle-turn. Some quilters will want to do this. Others will maybe choose to use the freezer paper method. Others still, will want to machine appliqué theirs. Whichever method you choose to do, your quilt will be lovely!

There are 36 blocks plus sashings and borders. We will make one block a week beginning the week of June 5, 2011. A schedule can be found below.

Come on and join in the fun! There is plenty of time for you to gather everything you need for this project. We won't be starting until June.

If you are joining us or even contemplating making the quilt, please let us know by posting to this thread. Tell us about the quilt you are planning to make. Are you going to do hand appliqué or machine appliqué? What color background do you think you're going to use? What kind of fabrics? Are you going to make it the original size, or enlarge it?

I'm sure we will all have fun. I know we will all improve our appliqué skills!

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon!

I will get the ball rolling by posting that I am going to make my AOTH the original size using machine appliqué, in black for the background and batiks for the colors. I thought I'd couch Ricky Timms' Razzle Dazzle thread in pink for the embroidered places.

By the way, we will probably be refering to the Affairs of the Heart quilt as "AOTH". It's so much easier.

While I was preparing for this announcement, I realized that 14 of the blocks are not symetrical. You will need to flip the pattern over to the back for the correct alignment if you are planning on using fusible for machine applique.

The blocks that need to be flipped are 1, 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 27, 30, 32, and 33. Hope this will help.

i am doing the original size with the black background. i will probably use as much of my stash as possible.

Congratulations! I am among the first to find this! WooHoo! I am anxious to get my book!

I haven't gotten to the part about size yet, but I am planning to use a black background. Other decisions will have to wait until I get my book!

awesome. welcome aboard.

Mine's going to be brights on black I think. The book is here, the black is in my stash, so I only need to find enough brights. No idea what size blocks yet! I plan to do it all by machine, possibly with the embroidery module if my idea works out.

Ah Hah, I found you all.

Thanks for doing this, its going to be awesome.

Decided to use a Lemon background with all different shades of blues, however I may change my mind and use some lovely batiks I have which are in varying shades from lights to darks.

Going with the original size

I''m in too - I shall be using a black background, because I have never done a quilt that dark, and I love the way colours pop with black behind them.

I am enlarging my blocks by 142% to bring them up from 7in to 10in. I have cut my background squares right across the width of fabric, so they are more or less 11in square, to give me a little 'wiggle' room for trimming down to 10.5in ready for sewing together.

By doing this, I estimate my quilt will end up about 84in square, and will therefore fit my bed. I don't have a lot of room for hanging quilts, only one place really, and I regularly change my quilts according to the seasons in that space. Plus to enlarge a block means that it's sometimes easier to make than a smaller one, and there isn't much more work involved.

I will be making my quilt using the needle turn method, and taking lots of pics along the way, both front and back, to give you all an insight on how I do mine. If anyone wants it, I will try and give some info on how to needlturn and get round the corners, and even how to do the relatively simple embroidery that decorates most, if not all blocks.

I have posted the first block in the thread for it, just to give you an idea on how mine will look. The thread for the first one is here:http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-95416-1.htm#2398791

You might like to look at this site too: http://cherylquilts.com/affairs_of_the_heart.htm
This quilt was machined, with satin stitch around all the pieces. The maker also changed her border and it's considerably different to the original in the book, which is more gentle curves and swirls than the one in this site. But if you are unsure about the blocks, there are some good pics of the blocks below the quilt, so do scroll down to see them.