There are many versions of heart quilt patterns out there, I know!! However, if you love playing with fabric, prints and colors as much as I do and want a quilt pattern that not only de-stash's but challenges your quilting skills, well then I welcome you to check out the Oh My Heart Quilt.
What really drove me to write this pattern was the amount of scraps building up in my fabric bins. I don't know about you, but it's hard to toss even those tiniest of scraps away, so I hoard all of them into color organized bags that are overflowing at the brim. I could just make another postage stamp quilt, but I wanted a pattern that was more challenging. So after one evening scrolling through Pinterest I came across an embroidery stitch of a heart. Each section was stitched using different colors of embroidery thread in geometric shapes. I thought this was brilliant with Valentines Day right around the corner.
It satisfied all my needs, a challenging new pattern that would use up my stash of scraps!! I had just gotten a F8 scrap bundle in the mail which was perfect to test out my first block. I wanted to write the pattern F8th and FQ friendly. With the use of basic quilting methods, such as HST's and Flying Geese this block came together really quick and I couldn't stop making them.
For my cover quilt I decided to use a combination of FQ's from Rifle Paper for Cotton and Steel Basics and Strawberry Field's which is featured above. To not overwhelm the eye, I grouped my FQ's in combinations of 4 and broke out each block the same way in the pattern. The pattern is written for two sizes, crib and throw. The throw comes in at 70" x 72" and the crib 50" x53", perfect to spruce up any little ones room for the holiday!
Why I chose Echoed Swirls as the quilting design?
With so much color and print already in the pattern I knew a dense quilting design would be best. I pondered the design choice for awhile and even reached out to my fellow Longarm League members for thoughts. In the end I went with Echoed Swirls by Jess at Threaded Quilting. I knew this design and Jess's style of dense quilting would give the hearts lots of texture and help show off the pattern without becoming the star. The quilting design should always compliment and play a supporting role, especially for a pattern cover quilt.
Making my heart blocks scrappy!
Even though I wrote this pattern to bust through my stash, I only recently started making my scrappy hearts! Finally, the other day I grouped all my scrap stash and pulled pieces big and small in warm tones to make some heart blocks. I followed the scrappy cutting instructions in the pattern to cut four blocks at a time and grouped the pieces by dimension. From there I just pulled from the correct pile and started making the core blocks to construct each Heart Block.
Once all the HST's and Flying geese blocks were finished, here is where it gets fun! In the pattern, each block will finish with 4 of the exact same HST blocks that can be rotated to make the pattern unique and give free creative choice to the quilter. For the scrappy version I decided to stretch that creativity and mix the HST blocks from heart to heart to really give the blocks a unique and scrappy look and creating different layouts in each block.
So whether you want to make the blocks using F8, FQ or all scraps, have fun making them and take creative liberties to make all the blocks unique and different.
Happy Quilting