Valentines Day. Some love it, some loathe it. I happen to be a lover - not of the commercial rigmarole but of the extra day to have a nice dinner with The Boyfriend, or have him bring me flowers. The naysayers will shout, why can’t you do that every day? Why do you need a holiday created by commercial vultures to celebrate your love? The answer is that we shouldn’t, but somehow we do. Do we always remember to do the little things for the person we love? Or do THEY remember to do them for us? In my mind its a nice little reminder to appreciate that special someone. Or if you don’t have a special someone, then your kids, or your bestie, or your mum. Or your dog. My boys always get Valentines from me, which they roll their eyes at but they secretly love. Feel the love today people, it is, actually, all around.
Which leads me away from design process information today and to heart quilts. I love a heart. In applique design, they have such excellent purpose - they can be leaves, or flowers, or bird wings. They’re often in my designs, sometimes as those things, but also just on their own as decoration. They’re an excellent shape for a beginner appliquér especially, because they have curves straight bits, points and inside points - all in the one humble and very satisfying shape.
I thought it would be fun to show you some of my favourite heart quilts, and also one of my own that I’m about to release the pattern for.
Keiko Goke is perhaps the queen of the heart in textiles. She has made so many heart quilts, and designed heart fabric. And she has my heart as one of my favourite designers! Hahaha sorry that was corny… but true. My favourite of all her Heart quilts I think is this one that she exhibited at the Yokohama Quilt Show in 2019.
You can see all her other quilts at her website, and theres a whole heart section.She also wrote a book that has a bunch of beautiful heart quilts in it, its out of print I think but I found it fairly easily googling. Its called All My Thanks and Love to Quilts.
Her fabrics are all beautiful, I love the way she uses colour pencils to design and they keep the pencil lines in for the printing. So much more appealing to me than a purely digital design! Her heart prints are my favourite, these are just two I like but theres loads out there.
I’m just going to throw two more of her quilts in here because they’re too goo not to. I saw that Double Wedding Ring in person at the quilt show in Houston one year - I sat on the floor in front of it and didn’t move for half an hour.
I digress. Heart quilts!
Theres been a lot of versions of the Exploding Heart pattern by Life of Pi quilts on the internet recently. It’s a fun pattern and something a bit different that the usual repeated hearts sort of heart quilt. I think its fab.
I like the graphic simplicity of Pen + Paper patterns, and I think this speech bubble heart quilt is the cutest.
The Queen of Hearts quilt by Tied with a Ribbon is right up my alley - all that scope for scrappy bits from your stash. I would probably applique a heart in the middle too but hey, thats me :)
My new pattern, which I’m expecting out next week-ish (insert crossed finger emoji here!) is called Courting, named for the double meaning of the love, and the block (its a Courthouse Steps). Its a quilt I made for our bed, and then when I posted pics everyone wanted the pattern so that threw a bit of a spanner in the works… none the less it’s nearly done and I’m going to have a sew along for it when it is. The pattern gives sizes to make the quilt in throw, double, queen or king size (mine is king). The little hearts in the middle are foundation paper pieced.
As StitchyMites I’m offering you a discount code for the pattern - normally $15, you can have 20% off until Feb 29 because I luffs you. Use COURTING20 code when you check out. Happy Valentines peeps!
