French General Heart

I love Valentine's Day.  I love red and red hearts, heart shaped sugar cookies, and Valentines (especially vintage looking ones.)  I was looking through a box of precuts for help with another project and came across three matching 2 1/2 inch  Candy packs of French General which I've had for years.  My brain said, "Count how many reds are in those packs."  There were enough to make a heart with a bit of sparkle here and there.  The lighter 2 1/2 inch squares made up the background.  I was short 24 squares but was able to cut those from leftover pieces of other French General fabrics I had.

 

I made 18 HST to create the heart shape.

 I used the 16 HST leftovers to make the corner border blocks.

All of the borders were made from fabrics I had on hand.  The wider red border was from a piece of FG Chateau Rouge that I had picked up to bind another quilt.  Now I will have to find another binding.

Chateau Rouge, thanks for inspiring me!

This wall hanging size quilt is 32 by 36 inches.

I had a piece of leftover batting but I bought some gray backing. I quilted it on my sewing machine.

I also bought a third yard of that cute tone on tone gray houndstooth fabric for the binding.  The finished project I then gifted to my daughter to decorate for Valentine's Day in her new old house.

Love Grows

I finally completely finished my Love Grows little quilt.  It only took me a year to pull it out again.  Something to do with hearts this time of year I guess.  I also think that I was finally confident enough to do the machine quilting.

And this is where it ended up, on a tension rod in front of the fireplace.

That is one drafty fireplace insert (which we hope to replace in the near future) and my quilt was just the right size, so hubby came up with the idea to hang it there.  I actually like it better than I thought I would.  Maybe I will have to make more seasonal small quilts 36 inches square.  Please don't be concerned, we also turned the pilot light off.

I even machine quilted looping hearts along the border.

I went with yo yo flowers for the grow part.

It has been a long time since I made yo yo flowers.  Janae, do you remember that outfit?

I love this heart garland I bought years ago.

I brought my Valentine decorations box from Arizona on my last road trip.

I also moved these pictures from my Arizona sewing room.  It is my family through the early years and a great memory board.  On this day of love, may I say how much I love my family which now includes five in-laws and almost a dozen grand children as well as the sweet faces above.

I hope that you are having a great Valentine's Day. . .

and are remembering to "always look on the bright side of life."

Valentine pillows ready for February

I finished my three Valentine pillows just in time for the month of hearts.

Each pillow has a scrappy heart. Some of the fabrics used have a "sewing" theme including spools, buttons, and sewing instructions.

Each heart is surrounded by a "ball headed pins" on white fabric.

 Each pillow has a different outer border.

They also have different backs.

After doing a small amount of machine quilting on the fronts, I made spilt backs for ease in the insertion of 14 inch pillow forms.  Fronts and backs were sewn together wrong sides together on the outer edge.

Then I cut 3 inch wide strips to make a binding wide enough to cover the seam.  I bound the edges just like I would with a quilt by sewing with machine to the right side and then hand stitching it down on the back.

I planned on scrappy binding, but ran out of fabric. I found this fabric in my stash for the final binding.

The other two were scrappy.

I love these on my red sofa.  Only two are staying.  The one that is not quite like the others is going to another home.  Shhhhsh!  It is a surprise!