Valentine’s Day is coming up! Seeing everyone making heart quilts inspired me to want to make a heart something of my own. I’m not really into symmetrical repetitive patterns though. It’s amazing how much more interesting you can make a design look just by making it uneven. I designed my heart to be a little bit wonky which in the end makes it look like the hearts are flowing up the quilt.

A couple quick tips for working with these appliques:
To get a nice sharp point at the bottom of the heart, cut off excess fabric around the point.
Whenever you have an applique with sharp curves, make lots of little snips around the edge in the seam allowance (don’t cut through your stitching!). It makes it so much easier to flip and allows the fabric to lay flat. If you want to reduce bulk when working with outside curves like in these hearts you could also cut out little triangles.

In making this quilt I made four appliques from each color; two of each size, flipping over the applique template for each so that the hearts were mirror images of each other.

All the colors were hand dyed using colors I have available in my store. Most were from my Cupid fat quarter pack (no longer availiable) but I also added in Crystal Cave (which I also used for the backing). The lavender backing was dyed specifically for this quilt.

A blank backing like this is just begging for some fancy quilting so I free motion quilted around the hearts. I think it makes them look like they’re bursting.

All in all it’s a pretty straightforward quilt (although that doesn’t mean it was quick to put together!)

Like this heart design? The template is free to download! I’d love to see what sort of creative things you all can come up with using this little guy!