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| My Valentine Quilt |
This quilt was started in August of 2019 and the inspiration for these quilt blocks came from a Moda pattern I saw online. It was called Thicket and featured a line of their fabric that had larger animals on it. I liked the idea of the random background blocks and decided to fill in the animal spaces with more square blocks.
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| Inspiration photo online |
The top was pieced on the front porch when it was warm and sunny outside. I set up my Bernina 830 on top of a treadle stand and then I was able to sew standing up. The ironing board was off to my left and the quilt was spread out on the floor behind me. I had a great view out the front windows and good light for the whole afternoon.
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| Standing work station |
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| I had plenty of help with the layout |
While moving back and forth between the machine and the quilt on the floor I'm sure I got in over a hundred squats for the day.
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| Checking replacement blocks to see that overall pattern stays random |
The finished top did not get basted and quilted until February of 2020. I finally pieced a backing from scraps of fabric I had and then took the layers over to mom's house to baste.
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| Backing , pre-baste |
I knew I wanted to hand quilt, but was very aware of the large number of seams in each block. To minimize how many seams I'd have to cross, I alternated X's and 0's across the blocks and then put a heart in the center of each square. The hearts and circle templates were cut out of cardboard from a frozen pizza box.
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| Circle traced from a jar and two free-handed hearts |
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| Slow going on the quilting |
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| Again, impeded progress |
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| Sometimes the quilting stands out and sometimes the fabric is noticed first |
Once the quilting was finished I looked through my stash for a suitable binding. I was completely out of any of the fabrics that were in the quilt, so I tried out the only solid I had. The gray did compliment the darker grays in the quilt, but it was a bit dark for the binding so I went to Vogue for another option.
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| A bit dark and not enough for all the binding anyway |
There was only one fabric at Vogue that was even close to what I had pictured. A light gray background with a non-floral pattern, lucky find. The binding was sewn on using my Bernina 1120 and then finished by hand.
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| Bernina 1120 with walking foot |
After sewing on the binding, I noticed that there was one place where it was not attached to the front of the quilt. I went back and added some zig-zag stitching. It's not invisible, but I bet no one notices besides me.
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| A bit of mending |
I had to wash the finished quilt two times to get the pencil markings out and then hung it dry over the shower curtain rod. This one will need a sleeve on the back since it will hang on the wall, but for now I just clipped it onto the hanging rod.
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| This color combo really has grown on me |
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| Hearts in every block |
