LOVE-ly quilts

 

I recently shared this finished quilt on Instagram and was overwhelmed by the LOVE given to it! Thank you so much for all of the kind comments and sweet 'hearts' given to it. It is a super fun pattern from my friend Rachealdaisy that can be found here. It's a fun method for both piecing the background sections as well as applique of the heart halves. 

I was lucky enough to sew along with 3 friends 'virtually' while stitching mine. We decided to each put our own twist on the pattern. We all chose different colors and even different applique methods. So it was extra special to see the variety of results.

One friend wanted her hearts to have a light and dark half each to them. She carefully placed the applique and the backgrounds to achieve this and then took a photo in black and white to check her progress.

And this is the result! I think she totally achieved the look she was going for and the gorgeous backgrounds and neutral tone hearts with pops of color here and there make an amazing effect! She fused her hearts to the backgrounds and longarmed the quilt on her own longarm.

Another friend decided to go King size (I did too!) and used beautiful shades of rainbow colors for the hearts and some really interesting low volume prints for her backgrounds. I just love the sweet result. She fused her hearts and machine finished them along the edges with clear thread.

Our fourth friend decided to hand applique all of her hearts so she is understandably taking a bit longer and enjoying the process. Her beautiful earth tones are so warm and cozy! She is going to use it as throw for her sofa, and we expect there will be more surprises before she's done.

I chose to use about half reds and pinks with some aqua, green and a few purples for fun. I also chose to use the same color in both halves of each heart rather than mixing it up. I used the freezer paper method to turn the edges on my hearts and then machine appliqued them to the backgrounds using a tiny zigzag stitch and clear thread. I then machine quilted it on my longarm using the SOHO panto from Urban Elementz. I added 2 extra rows of hearts and pieced borders on the sides only using background scraps cut 4'' x 6 1/2''. I like the extra length on the sides and the final quilt was about 88" x 106". 

Thanks so much to Rachealdaisy for the fun pattern and lots of inspiration!

Enjoy every stitch!

Diane