petite hearts quilt – Monday Morning Designs

Another quilt finished and one with an interesting story to go along with it. After finishing my Christmas quilt I thought, why not make one for Valentine’s Day? I love the color pink and tend to use it frequently so I had a lot of scraps on hand to choose from.

I wanted a heart quilt with a large array of pinks and reds, but I didn’t want to use the traditional heart shape so I opted for something more modern.

Once I had my idea I began designing the heart block and I started writing a pattern for it. Here’s what’s interesting…I thought I was onto something original, but when I went to name it I found it had been done before, published as a baby quilt in 2017, and had the exact same name! I admit I was a bit let down, but I still loved the design and it didn’t stop me from moving forward. I chose a different name because the quilts were different; mine was throw size, my blocks were bigger and I didn’t add borders.

Background fabric: Riley Blake Pin Dot/Peony by Lori Holt

Whenever I come up with a new design I always look to see if anyone else has already done it. For some reason when I checked for this heart quilt I didn’t see it anywhere, though I’m not really surprised it was done before because it is a pretty basic block.

Although I can’t claim it as my own design even though I’d never seen the other one (it isn’t worth getting blamed for copying) I do think it’s the cutest quilt I’ve ever made!

Here’s some general information on how I made my quilt. I wrote my pattern for using 10″ squares but it’s also scrap friendly. This illustration shows how I made my blocks from scraps. I used 29 different fabrics.

As an alternative, you can save time by strip piecing with precuts. Sew together and cut, as illustrated. One strip set will make 3 block halves.

I cut my background squares 5 ½” x 5 ½”, 99 total. I didn’t cut my edge pieces in half like most quilters would have done. Instead, I sewed them on as squares and trimmed them once the quilt top was complete. You might ask why would I do that? Well, I’m no fan of bias edges and by doing it this way I didn’t experience stretching and it ended up perfectly square. 🙂 And I know it’s certainly not the conventional way!

Here’s the layout of my Petite Hearts Quilt. Rows are sewn together on point (diagonally).

I used a variety of fabrics for this quilt including Riley Blake, Art Gallery, Andover, Michael Miller…just to name a few. The backing is Simply Colorful II in magenta by V & Co. for Moda. I sewed my binding on by hand using Aurifil 2530. I did the quilting myself on my Janome using the serpentine stitch using Aurifil 2026. Finished size is roughly 56″ x 70″.