Love is in the air...

...and everywhere you look, shops, television, internet -everywhere there's an abundance of gift ideas, sweets and boxes of chocolate, jewelry, flowers, soft toys, the list is endless...  For most of the quilting blogs they too have some or other item they're making for valentines day.  So I thought of joining in the fun!

Heart shapes made from my Twister Quilt scraps

This is how I made these cute little heart shapes:

Sew two pieces of contrasting colours together, pressing the seams open.  Trace a heart shape  onto fusible applique, I used wonder under.  Iron the rough side to the wrong side of the fabric ensuring that the inside and outside points are straight in line with the seam.  Cut out once you're ready to applique the hearts to another piece of fabric, to prevent the edges from unraveling.  Peal off the backing piece of paper and iron on, using a hot dry iron.

Use any type of applique stitch you prefer and sew all around the heart shapes either by hand or machine.  I hand sewn blanket stitch with dark pink thread.

I started playing around with fabrics and placement, and ended up with this little quilt top.

I used 4 pieces, 6½ x 6½ inch light pink fabric.  12 Pieces, 2½ x 6½ strips of dark pink fabric and to add a bit of contrast, 9 pieces, 2½ x 2½ dark green fabric.  The finished quilt top is 18 x 18 inches using a ¼ seam allowance, stitch length set at 2.

I starched the quilt top on both sides to keep the fabric nicely flat.  I made another heart shape template just a little bit bigger than the applique shapes, and traced around the hearts using a fine line water soluble pen.

When I started quilting I stitched in the ditch over the entire quilt to secure it properly, then I micro stippled only on the light pink fabrics outlining the heart shapes and the drawn lines around the hearts.

It has so much texture, I love it!

Back of quilt

Linking up to WIP Wednesdays @ Freshly Pieced & FMQ Friday @ The Free Motion Quilting Project.

Happy quilting