Piecing the Background Fabric: Stripes

Novelty print fabrics that inspired me to re-create Sweetheart Sorbet for Valentine’s Day.

St. Valentine’s Day always inspires me. 

In the midst of cold, wintry February we get to cheer for the groundhog and celebrate love.  And on a personal note, February is a special month as it hosts my sister’s birthdays, Abe Lincoln’s birthday and my birthday. 

So many of my patterns have the word heart in them…Hearts & Fleurs, Snowy Hearts, and the pattern we’re going to focus on today, Sweetheart Sorbet.

Heart block from Snowy Hearts in the same novelty group of fabrics.

I get inspired by fabric. 

Though I usually work in batiks, I recently got inspired by a group of novelty prints at my local quilt store, Sew Downtown in Greeley, Colorado, and decided to re-make my Sweetheart Sorbet pattern, and even got so ambitious I thought I would make Snowy Hearts table runner in the same fabrics for my personal use. The fabrics were cute and fun, with stripes and tic-tac-toe boards with hearts in them. Though I have enough done to write this blog, it is a UFO.  You see, I’m no different than you.

Sorry, I’ve digressed.  To the point!

For the Sweetheart Sorbet Medallion XII I wanted to use the red & white striped fabric as the background fabric.  It had a decidedly directional nature to it.  But as the design is symmetrical, I wanted the striped fabric to show through symmetrically as well.  So I decided to piece the background fabric.  Here’s what I did.

The pattern calls for 1 yard of background fabric.  You don’t need any extra fabric to piece your background fabric.

From the background fabric I cut four squares 15 ½” x 15 ½”.

Four squares 15 1/2” x 15 1/2” cut and turned in the right direction for sewing together.

I rotated them so the stripes went the direction I wanted them to go. I decided I wanted them to make a box like shape around the center.

With right sides together and aligning raw edges of 2 squares, I pinned and sewed using a ¼” seam allowance.  I did this twice.  Now had two rectangles 15 ½” x 30 ½”. 

Sewing two squares togethr.

two squares stitched together to make a rectangle 15 1/2” x 30 1/2”. Make two.

Background all pieced. 30 1/2” x 30 1/2”.

Then, with right sides together and aligning raw edges and seams, I sewed these two rectangles together to make a 30 ½” x 30 ½” square of background fabric.

I was making the version of the pattern where it is reverse applique mixed with applique.  But even that I was being creative about.  I only wanted to applique the Hearts. Because of this design choice, it didn’t matter whether the stripes themselves matched as I sewed these squares together.  If I was going to make the medallion as completely reverse applique, I would also want to align red stripes with red stripes and white stripes with white stripes as I sewed my squares together.

Laying background fabric right side down on pattern; centering fabric on the pattern using the hash marks on the pattern to trace the design.

I was ready to begin making my Sweetheart Sorbet Medallion XII.  I decided I was going to make it by hand, but you could make it by machine. If making by machine, just follow the pattern’s machine directions.

I lay out my pattern on my table and lay my pieced red and white striped background fabric, right-side down on the pattern.  I centered the fabric on the pattern using the hash marks on the pattern, and secured it with pins, and traced.  Following the pattern directions I layered the background fabric with my top fabric and hand basted.  Since that time I have written a blog about machine basting which you might want to try as it does make the basting go faster. (Can You Machine Baste? March 5, 2019)

Cutting away top fabric and hand reverse appliqueing to reveal the striped background fabric framing the center.

After I was all basted I began to cut away the top fabric and hand reverse needle turn applique my Sweetheart Sorbet with hand appliqued hearts. Here you can see how the red & white striped fabric peaks out from the top fabric encircling the center. 

Now I’m even inspired to pull out my UFO and finish it.  I’d love to tell you that I’d get it done for this Valentine’s Day, but I’m busy making all those new quilt pattern designs for Spring and Fall market already.  So, maybe this Sweetheart Sorbet will be done for next Valentine’s Day.  I’ll let you know.

Update 2023: Find out how the stitching of the non-batik novelty print fabric is going, and the lessons I’m being reminded of. Read the blog, Fabric Lessons freshly Learned, posted March 6, 2023.