Quilt The Four Loves

Hello my quilter friends, how are you?

It's been a while since my last blog, hasn't it? I missed it!

But this time the theme is special. This week is the registration for my new course The Art of Quilt 2023 and in the course we will develop a quilt from start to finish. That's right, from choosing the fabrics with knowledge about color concepts to quilting and finishing. Isn't it amazing? The course is very complete and has a lot of content!

I wanted to develop a course where someone who has never made a quilt in their life, but knows how to do it, could learn and then be able to make any quilt they wanted after this course, including imported designs!

During the course, I developed a specific quilt, the Four Loves quilt! A quilt made up of 4 blocks, inserts, cornerstones and a border! After all, it had to be a quilt with all these elements, because adding a border has its own tips and techniques. But why the name The Four Loves? What do these four loves mean? And why does each block receive these specific names?

Everything I create, in fact, was not created by me, but in the quilt everything has a name and meaning. Have you noticed that the blocks have names? Log Cabin, Ohio Star, Le Moine Star and so on, and with their respective meanings. Quilts too, each quilt has a name by the person who created it.

The Four Loves Quilt is connected to my purpose for creating the Art of Quilting Course. This purpose is to transmit and immortalize this love for the people around you, to leave something that is priceless, that is, more valuable than anything material, TIME. Your time dedicated to someone and the Four Loves quilt has this name because of the four moments that exist in the routine of each one of us, so important and at the same time so forgotten in this fast-paced world in which we live!

The four loves are demonstrated in the four blocks: The Neighborhood block (Log Cabin), the Garden Flower block (Caminho do Bêbado), the Dinner Table Vase block (Flower Basket) and the Foundation Paper Piece block. These blocks represent each moment or situation in our daily lives, because we should pay more attention to the things that happen routinely than always focusing on the result, the goal, the future. How easy it is to forget the present, the moment here and now, isn't it? It's always, tomorrow when I wake up I need to do this, on Friday I have this, next week I have that and so on... Before you know it, your son is already turning 15, your dog already has a health problem because he's old and time has passed. I think it's important to walk, to be present and that's why the name The Four Loves, the four loves of our routine.

1) NEIGHBORHOOD BLOCK means the community where we live, the neighbors, the stores near our home, school, church, that is, the places and people that are part of our daily lives, that we bump into and meet when we leave home, when we arrive. These places and people are as important as our own family, aren't they? Knowing that we can count on our neighbors, having a great relationship with them means feeling that you are not alone in this world, it means feeling responsible for the community in which you live and being part of it. Think about it, for some people and families, there are those who spend more time with their neighbors and community than with distant relatives, right? And that is feeling love and being loved.

2) GARDEN FLOWER BLOCK is the block that represents our garden, backyard, balcony or any environment that you like to relax in. A place just for you, with things that you like and that in my case are flowers. Having a place where you can be enchanted by beauty, relax and clear your mind, regardless of what you do, is nice, healthy and important. It is having love for yourself.

3) DINING TABLE VASE BLOCK represents the table where we gather with the family to eat, to have an afternoon coffee, to have lunch or to have a meal together. It is one of the few moments when the family is together, to talk, to be together, to look at each other, to enjoy the food and to watch our children grow, right? We should appreciate these moments in our routine more and for me it is one of the moments of love!

4) MY GUIDING STAR BLOCK, yes, it is a block that represents, as the name says, a star that guides you on this walk, on this journey of life. What motivates you to live? What motivates you to do what you do every day? Why do you do what you do? This is your purpose, and this is your star, this is your north. This is love for your life and your descendants, have you ever stopped to think about it? What you do, what you think and how you think, how you act, everything is relevant to your life and your descendants.

With these blocks, I created my quilt The Four Loves, each block with a technique and lots of execution tips. The quilt comes in two versions, Sunlight which represents the moon of the day and Moonlight the light of the night. The fabrics are from Catex Tecidos, Fabricart and FuxicoseFricotes. It is with this quilt that the Art of Quilt Course is shaped and was prepared with all the steps that comprise a quilt: choosing fabrics, making the blocks, joining the block with interfacing and border, quilting the piece and finishing.

The Four Loves Quilt takes around 2m10cm of fabric in total for the top and finishing. The largest footage is in the background and border fabrics, the rest is only 0.20cm of fabric for each print, which are used in the 4 blocks and cornerstones.

SUNLIGHT VERSION - THE FOUR LOVES quilt

MOONLIGHT VERSION - THE FOUR LOVES Quilt

You can download this spreadsheet quantifying the fabrics needed for the Four Loves quilt at the link below:

The Four Loves Quilt Fabric Chart

The Art of Quilt Course 2023 is open for registration until July 14th, where we start with the first module on the 15th. Those interested in registering and for more information about the course such as: course duration, what you take on the course, weekly meetings, what the course contains and others just click on the link below.

The Art of Quilt Course registration here.

I hope you enjoyed the story behind the names of the blocks in the Four Loves quilt. A brief explanation of the name of each block and the quilt. May these small, routine moments be more valued by each of us, because after all, these are the moments that we carry with us for the rest of our lives!

Happy sewing to all,

With inches and love,

Tania Mogari