I went wandering into my favorite quilt store, that is only 1/2 a mile from my house, (JK quilts does mail order too!!!) when my mom was in town and they had the CUTEST Valentine’s Day fabric. I asked my momma nicely, and she purchased a fat quarter bundle for me. (The fabric is called Love Grows from Moda)
When I got it home, I had planned to work on another quilt first, but she pointed out to me that I might want to go ahead and do my Valentine’s quilt in case I needed to go back for more fabric. What if they sold all their matching fabric before I got my quilt done and I needed just a little bit of fabric???
Well it was a good thing I did. I went back several times for more fabric, mainly because I needed longer strips for border fabrics. And I love how it turned out!!!
Confession: I found all my favorite Valentine’s blocks and put them into one quilt. Most of these blocks are not my own design, but I will show you how to combine the different blocks to make your own quilt, or something like it.
Today we are going to focus on the center. This part came from a mystery sew along that Fort Worth Fabric Studio put together back in 2018 called Love Throughout the Year. The final size of their quilt was 39 in, but I wanted one bigger. So I started with it and then added to it. The pattern is found here.
I started with cutting out all my pieces. I decided that I liked all but the final part of the quilt. The little “bumps”, as I call them, weren’t very exciting for me, so I didn’t cut them out. I skipped the “A” pieces and the “Y” pieces that go with them to make those blocks. Then I got to assembling.
Because it’s a mystery quilt, Fort Worth Fabric Studio didn’t start in the middle, but that’s exactly where I’m going to start.
First up is the heart surrounded by the star. Look how beautiful it turned out??? I love stars and I thought this was a great way draw the eye to the middle. (Step 3 of QAL)
Next came the rows of hearts. These are just super cute and I may have to use them on another Valentine’s project. (Step 1 of the QAL)
Next is the corner flowers. (Step 2 of the QAL) If you’ve seen my Amelia quilt, you’ll know how much I love these flowers. I put them in the center there, and adding them to the corners is beautiful.
I have a really hard time being random and scrappy when it comes to quilts and my mom was laughing how my rows of hearts were dark, medium, and light. I seriously didn’t plan for that. I was just trying not to put the pink next to the pink, the red next to the red, and the white next to the white. But because I liked the way it turned out, I kept it that way.
Skipping Step 4 of the QAL, I head straight over to step 5. Applying the rows of hearts and flowers in the corners. I then switched the next two borders, putting the lighter one first, then the darker one. That’s where I finished my Love Throughout the Year QAL. And decided to add a little bit of my own design. But that’s for another day.
If you like the way they finished their quilt, head on over and do it yourself. Or you can wait for my next post when you see how I added a little more Valentine Love to my quilt.
