Happy Hearts

Since I am having surgery tomorrow morning, I am going around the house to see if there's anything that needs to be done. My husband and kids will be taking care of me, so I am trying to get some stuff done to make their job a little easier. As I was looking around my family room, I realized that I haven't blogged about my Valentine decorations! I know for sure they don't know how to blog for me!




I made a quilt just like this for my granddaughter's first Valentine's Day. I loved it so much I had to make one for me. I had some extra blocks so I made a tablerunner, too!

It was a fast, fun quilt to make. It was the first time I had ever tried rough edge applique. Rough edge applique is different than regular machine applique because you don't zig-zag or button hole stich around the applique itself. Instead, you straight stich 1/4 inch away from the edge. When your project is completely finished, you wash it, and the edges fray a little.



This quilt was fun because you first fuse and rough edge applique a large heart to the center of a background square. Cut down the center of each heart block. Sew one half of a heart to another half of a heart that has a different fabric. Then fuse a smaller heart to the center, and rough edge applique it, too!

Sew the blocks together, quilt it, bind it, add a label, and you're done!

Now it's back to straightening the house and doing some laundry. My last day of doing housework for a while...boo hoo!!!

P.S.

After I wrote this post, I found some hearts online that should work since I don't have my heart pattern scanned into my computer. You can find them here.

You may have to adjust the size of your background block to accomodate the size of the larger heart. Whatever you do, decide what size you want your unfinished block to be (finished size plus 1/2"). Add an inch to that size because you are cutting it in half and sewing it back together again. For example: let's say you want your finished block to be 8 inches. Add 1/2" for seam allowances which would equal to 8 1/2". To that add 1 inch, so your background block will start out to be 9 1/2". When you're finished appliqueing, cutting apart, and sewing together again, then you can square it up to whatever size you want your unfinished block to be; in this case it would be 8 1/2".