Pieced Heart Pillow and Valentine Table Topper

I really LOVE red and white!

If you'd like to make these versatile 15" blocks which can be table toppers, pillows, or wall hangings, read on....

 

 TUTORIALS

Step 1:  Grab some valentine colored fabrics-- pinks, reds, whites and creams

I love pinks but decided to go with reds for these projects.

These range from red reds, to rusty reds to pinky and peachy reds.

I drew out a pattern and decided to go with a 36 patch block.  (I used 2" squares which yields a 9" finished block but if you used 2 1/2" squares, you'd get a 12" finished block.)

Cut 2" strips of various fabrics and sew two together and then slice off 2" segments and press.

For the half square triangles HST's, cut 2 3/8" squares in red and your background color (white or cream), draw a line diagonally and sew 1/4" on each side of the line.  Then cut along the line you've drawn.

Press the HSTs open.

Lay your pieces out to create the heart shape.

Before sewing together, make sure to square up your HST's.

When you have 4 patches sewn together, square them up.

Next sew into four 9 patches and square up.

Sew together

Until you have one pieced 36 patch heart block. Now, I decided to make a pillow, so will continue with how I did that.

I sewed a square pillow form by cutting a piece of fabric 15" x 30", folding in half and sewing each side closed and about 1" around each corner and leaving most of one side open, into which I slid pieces of batting of a slightly smaller size and then placed stuffing in between the batting.  I then stitched up the open side.  In hind sight, I wish I had boxed the corners, so if you make one, you may want to do that.

I need some side strips for my block to make it the right size for the pillow.

I cut some 4 inch strips of light cream color fabric.

I always love the look when people stitch some words into their project and so looked for something and found this:  "Love is patient, Love is kind... and I printed it out.

I laid the fabric over and traced the words using a red fine Sharpie pen.

I wish I would have traced the words on the top strip a little lower and a little higher on the bottom strip -- so do that.

This turned out to be 15" square and it's not quite yet made into a pillow, but I'll update this when it's done.  My embroidery is rough-- 1st try in a long time. I watched a Youtube video which was helpful-- still need practice. 

The back.

Now onto the tutorial for the Table Topper...

Using the same 2" strips sewn together, demonstrated in the heart shape block tutorial, make 4 patches, square up to 3 1/2" squares.

Sew the 4 patches into a 9 patch (which is actually a 36 patch) and square it up to be 9 1/2".

Make four white strips 9 1/2" x 3 1/2" and sew two to the sides.

Make four of the heart shape corners:  Sew a 2" strip of white to a 2" strip of red, press and cut 2" sections.  Sew that together with a previously sewn red 2 patch, as shown.

Sew the heart corners to the two remaining white strips.  Lay out as shown and stitch together.

Sew the heart corner strips to each side of the block so the heart shapes are facing out at each corner.

Square it up.

I did some free motion quilting.  Leaf shapes in the red blocks and heart shapes in the white border with small meandering around each heart to create the dimension.

Here's how I got the uniform heart shapes.  I cut out 3 heart shapes (fold paper in half and cut your valentine) and pinned them on and sewed around them.

See the tiny red buttons laying to the right-- I thought about embellishing with them, but the topper didn't require any embellishing.

Here's the back.

I bound it with red/white striped fabric cut on the bias. 

I hope you enjoyed seeing these projects.  Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions, etc.
Don't forget to check out Elaine's blog for more tutorials and the Flickr page and add your own projects there!