Pemberley - Heart Flower Blocks

Today for my Slow Sunday Stitching I decided to work on the Heart Flower Blocks for the Pemberley quilt.  My husband surprised me yesterday with a new "toy" to use in my quilting and I was anxious to give it a try.  I had been saying for awhile now that I wanted a clapper, he finally asked what I was talking about and I showed him a picture in Nancy's Notions.   Well, he ordered it and it arrived yesterday.  Such a nice surprise, and today I wanted to give it a try.

My first step in the Heart flower block was to prep the pieces for applique.  These are the pieces for one block  and there are four of them in the quilt, one for each corner. 

For applique in this pattern, Katrina Hadjimichael (designer) recommentds English Basted Method.  This was new to me, but I have been English Paper Piecing for years now and decided I would try out this method on these border blocks.  I traced and cut my paper patterns Friday  and cut the fabrics yesterday.  Today I basted fabrics to the papers for the gold Heart Flower block and pressed them flat using my clapper.  I must say, it does a great job.  If you are not familiar with a clapper, you simple place it over a pressed seam or edge right after you take the iron off.  The board somehow helps set the seams flat. I use a hand quilting weight thread in a contrasting color to baste fabric to the paper...makes it so much easier to see the threads when I pull them out.

If you notice the straight edges on the gold hearts, this is where you join the hearts. I used English paper piecing and joined the hearts before I removed the papers.

I always make a small tack stitch along the side to be stitched to ensure the points line up correctly prior to whip stitching the two edges together.  You cant see the tack stitches I made because the thread color closely matches the fabric, so I placed pins where each tack stitch is, just so you can tell what I do.  I generally place them about every inch or so across the seam. 

I use Coats and Clark dual duty 50wt thread for English Paper Piecing as I find it to be the strongest.  Here are the four hearts, English Paper Pieced  together.  At this point, I remove the papers, once again press the seams flat and pin the hearts to the background for applique.

Once I have the gold heart pinned in place, I have to place the leaf in place.  It much be appliqued first as the gold heart will overlap the leaf.  I line the leaf us with the joining seam, and had measured on the pattern that the leaf should extend beyond the heart  2 1/2 inches.  I pin it in place and then tuck in under the gold heart.  When appliqueing the leaf, I pin the gold fabric out of the way and use a running stitch to secure the leaf to the background which lies behind the gold fabric.
 So here is how far I got today on this flower block.  I may finish more tonight, but needed a break  for now.  Hopefully, tomorrow I will finish this block.