Love and friendship have been one of the many themes in my work. My first “love” quilt was What’s the Frequency, Love? (1st place winner in the Small Quilts category at QuiltCon 2015), which led to Big Love, which then evolved into Modern Love. A modern wedding was the inspiration for my Double Wedding Knot quilt.
Today I’m going to take you behind the scenes of my latest love-inspired quilts, Love at First Sight.
Earlier this year, I made my “I Heart EPP” mini quilt. I was just about to launch Typecast, a complete English Paper Piecing alphabet set. To celebrate the launch, I was making quilts incorporating the Typecast letters with other blocks and drafted up a heart that would communicate my message.
The original heart was English Paper Pieced (hand sewn), but as I was playing around with new quilt ideas I realized that it would be easy to make it a beginner-friendly Foundation Paper Pieced pattern (sewn on a sewing machine). I also thought it would be fun to include both a basic, simplified heart in the pattern to add some additional visual interest.
While you can use yardage and even scraps, Love at First Sight is the perfect pattern to pair with your fat quarter bundle (in the pattern are recommendations for how many fat quarters you’ll need for the quilt layout you’re making). The first Love at First Sight quilt I made was with this beautiful bundle of Summer Side designed by Dana Willard for Art Gallery Fabrics. I was piecing it during the spring in Connecticut, longing for summer strawberries, popsicles and beach weather!
After I pieced all of the hearts, I used the leftovers from the fat quarters to make a pretty scrappy binding.
The Love at First Sight pattern includes instructions for both types of heart blocks as well as three quilt layouts, including this option that is the perfect throw quilt, measuring 60″ x 67″. For the background, I used Art Gallery Denim in Vanilla Mist. The denim is about the same weight as quilting cotton, but the weave is slightly looser giving a really nice soft texture.
I used Aurifil 50wt cotton in White (2024) for the background and Stone (2324), a neutral that looks great in the hearts.
making a scrappy, rainbow version
For the second version of Love at First Sight, I wanted to use up some of my scraps. Lately, my bins (that I organize by color) have been overflowing. Side note: you can see how I organize my scraps here—total disclosure, the bins are WAY more full these days even after making this quilt). I used Aurifil 50wt cotton in White (2024) for the background and various colors (2260, 2150, 2134, 1231, 1148, 4182, 2735, 2540 and 2535) to match the heart that I was quilting.
This overall heart layout option (instructions included in the pattern) measures 60″ x 60″.
make your own Love at First Sight!
This quilt makes the perfect wedding, engagement, anniversary or friendship gift. It’s also super sweet for a baby or kid. Make it your own by swapping out fabric or rearranging the two types of heart quilt blocks! Get your copy of the pattern here.
Go make something great,
