Free Project for Valentine's Day

February is widely known as the Month of Love thanks to its most popular holiday, Valentine’s Day. While for some Valentine’s Day may feel like an over-the-top Hallmark holiday, I personally love the idea of everyone collectively coming together on the same day to celebrate the people in their lives that they love. Whether you’re bringing roses home to your partner after a long day of work, dropping off homemade brownies to your best friend, or watching a romantic comedy on the couch with your family, Valentine’s Day gets its true magic from the traditions that you and your loved ones create. 

One way that I show love to my friends and family is by creating sweet, thoughtful (and usually easy) projects to let them know that I was thinking of them. This is a free project I designed for exactly this purpose – quick, sweet and easy! It’s the perfect size for a wall hanging or table topper, and while I like that it’s not in traditional Valentine’s Day colors, yours easily could be! For the version I’m showing here, I chose the Curious Dream collection from Windham Fabrics. It’s soft, pretty and inspired by one of my favorite fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland. 

Dearest Heart
36" x 36"

This project features the use of the GO Mix and Match 6” Qube, GO! 6” Companion Set and Queen of Hearts Die Sets, however traditional cutting instructions are included in the pattern instructions. You can download this free pattern from our website: https://media.rainpos.com/4806/dearest_heart_pattern_with_cover_fr064_01182017.pdf

While constructing the pieced block for this quilt, I wanted to keep things simple. I used a Monkey’s Wrench Block, featuring assorted dies from the GO! Qube 6” Mix and Match dies. I added a touch of white fabric as the restring strip to help break up the different peach and teal pieces. 

For the appliqué block, I used a combination of colors and different heart sizes from the Queen of Hearts Die to add dimension. I centered the layout easily by folding the background square into quarters and pressing. Then, once you open the block, the center lines are pressed in and can be used as a placement guide for the hearts. 

I choose a bright turquoise Aurifil thread for the finishing stitches around the hearts as I like the way that the color pops off against the block. Even though thread color can sometimes look very intense on the spool, I recommend laying out a piece of thread you’re considering against the block to see how it looks. You’d be surprised at how much your opinion can change when you see everything together. I tried several softer colored threads initially, but kept coming back to the bright turquoise!

To pull everything together, I used the darkest teal fabric in the collection as the sashing as it works as a frame around each of the lighter colored blocks. I also used the peach words fabric for the corner stones to help bring the peach color through to the outer areas. 

Now if you know me, you know just how much I love polka dots! So for the Outer Border I made (44) 3” Drunkard Path blocks and used them to create a polka dot border. I’m absolutely thrilled with how this came out and feel like it has the potential to bring such an interesting element to other borders and projects. Also Make sure to check out our video on how to do curves without pinning 

If you decide to make this pattern for a loved one in your life, I hope you have as much fun making it as I had! Happy Valentine’s Day and don’t forget to share any pictures with me – seeing your creations is my favorite part!