I {heart} quilts

I've wanted to make a Valentine's quilt for a while...I couldn't find the link, but I feel like I read about someone who had a Valentine's Day quilt and they passed it around the family. Someone would start with it, and they would do something kind for another family member and the quilt would pass onto them, and so on, and so on. What I really loved about this idea was that it encouraged everyone to show love for each other. I'm really not big on Valentine's Day...but this, I could get behind. I didn't love the quilt she had, but I did really like the heart quilt on Allison Harris's blog.

I pulled fabric out, and when I had my stack, I realized how much I thought my sister-in-law would like it, so I resolved to make two. Then, I realized that we would most likely visiting my sister-in-law and her family (who live in a different state) after Christmas, so all of the sudden, the pressure was on! I checked in with Abby Latimer, my go-to quilter, and had just about a week or so to get them in to her to get them back in time for Christmas...and I made it!

I quickly bound hers and took it with us when we did go down to visit. She loved it! I never actually got a picture of hers, but it's identical to mine, save the binding. I bound hers in navy blue. 

I really love this modern twist quilting that Abby did on it; I think I'll use it more often.

I tried out a new binding technique. I'm still feeling my way around binding. While I have improved tremendously, I'm still working on my skills and am trying to find my preferred method. This time, I glue basted (I've done this several times now), and finished it with a zig zag stitch. My hope was that this would be more forgiving...it sort of worked. :-) I still need to practice, of course. Especially since mine is a little wavy, even though I did my best to square the quilt before I bound it, so I'm not sure why it's wavy...oh well...it's handmade and not supposed to be "perfect," right?

I {heart} Quilt
completed January 2016
Tutorial by Allison Harris
Quilted by Abby Latimer