big love

I made a Valentine quilt! 

This is Big Love by Nicole Daksiewicz at Modern Handcraft.  She just updated her free tutorial for this pattern.  You can find it here.

My scrappy heart center wasn't standing out too well so I tried to define it better with the quilting.  I started with straight lines, a presser foot apart, within the heart.  Then I outlined the full heart and quilted concentric "hearts" 1 inch apart for the remainder of the quilt.  Simple and effective.

On the back I added a row of the ever so popular Cluck Cluck Sew hearts.  Allison offers a free tutorial that now includes all different sizes of hearts.  You can fine it here.  She also offers several different patterns that use the heart blocks.  Check them out!

I used a wool/cotton blend batting that I picked up on sale at Joann's. I actually had to pick seeds out of it! I was hesitant to use it but it was all I had so went with it. Turns out it washed up beautifully and I really like the little extra poof of wool with the denser weight of cotton.  The blend is nice.  Now I'll do a little research to see who offers this in a seedless option!

Happy February!