Here is my first attempt of a Seminole heart design; I made it in the summer.
When you have a fabric with a rainbow design that runs on the entire width of the fabric, you have to use it all, no matter what! In this way I ended up with a long row of 20 rainbow hearts and did not know what to do with it! Finally I decided to cut it into two strips and because they were too narrow, I thought to add some more Seminole strips.
I threw them into a box, thinking that the project will remain an UFO forever! For me, it is easy to test if a project could become a pattern: if I don’t enjoy sewing the project a few more times, it means the project is a loser and I move on to the next one! And it happened with this one! Not eager to sew 4 more seminole bands for only one quilt…
But I couldn’t give up to rainbows so easily!! So after months of having these pieces in my sight I understood that there is an easy fix to this problem: you just have to combine all the seminole designs into one! And instead of sewing 4 seminole bands, you sew one band with 4 designs!
So this was my next design! So easy and quick that I could make it 10 more times! So it became a pattern!
And I made it one more time (the same design, only different placement of color).
And one more version- simplified!
I included lots of information on how to design your own Seminole quilt in the pattern, even how to calculate the size of your design, so you make a quilt that fits your needs!
Many months after the starting of this adventure, I managed to join those seminole strips into this beautiful quilt!
TIP you need to know
If you have to design yourself two seminole bands with DIFFERENT designs and you have to stitch these bands together, you must be sure that your Seminole bands have the same length. But if you use different designs, how can you be sure that you calculate your designs correctly?
Here is the answer:
- You can make the designs as tall as you want; one of them can be taller than the other.
- The width of the design must be the same for both seminole bands (see the markings in the picture below). The easiest way to achieve this is to use the same number of strips, in the same width, for both designs (it is what I did for my rainbow quilt). You can use a different number of strips, but in this case you have to adjust their width so the final width of the design will be the same for both Seminole designs.
One more tip!
The Seminole design stretches a lot; the outside edges are cut on bias, all those on-point squares stretch as well. If you want to add it as a border to a quilt, you need to know its actual length. And instead of guessing it, I think it is better to calculate it (but only if your piecing was accurate, of course!). Maybe it is hard to do the math for ANY design, but for the designs based on squares, it is easy to calculate it.
I have never used a Seminole design into a border exactly for this reason, but now I feel more confident that I can do it!
And here is my finished quilt.
Everything I have learned while working on this quilt I applied in the new pattern. That’s why I hope it will offer you an AMAZING sewing experience!
Ready to sew your own Seminole heart quilts? Click here for details.
Happy sewing!
Love to do Seminole piecing, your pics are an inspiration!
Beautiful!
As usual your patterns are amazing. My question is where do you find time to do all these. Your work is beautiful. I have bought some of your patterns and love making them, the instructions are easy to understand and the out come is amazing. Thank you.
You do beautiful work. My question is how large does the throat of the machine need to be? Obviously you can’t FMQ a full size quilt in a small throat area.