a labor of love

This quilt really was a labor of love. It has been about a year since I finished it, but it is still one of the projects of which I am most proud.

It all started when my mom retired from teaching sewing, and upon going through all her old stuff, we found this little gem: The Best of Miniature Quilts Volume 2. Inside it were 18 patterns, with directions, for some of the most beautiful, incredibly detailed quilts I had ever seen. They were all miniature quilts meant to be hung on the wall, but I had other plans. I asked to "borrow" the book, and have never returned it--sorry, Mom!!

The pattern I fell in love with was called Don't Tread on My Heart, and I wanted it for my little girl's twin bed when she moved out of the crib. With finished dimensions of 20 1/2" x 29 1/2", it obviously needed some adjusting for a twin-sized quilt.

I enlarged the pieces to twice the size in the book, and then cut out enough fabric for twice as many hearts as it originally asked for. The original quilt pattern was for only the area inside the red box in this picture:
As you can see, I added quite a bit. The whole quilt ended up being over 740 pieces!


I also created my own design element that got a lot of funny looks. I can't even count the number of times I heard, "Why are the corners cut out?"

Although it might look ridiculous laying out flat, the corners being cut out made it so that the quilt could be laid on a day bed, or a bunk bed without bunching on the frame, like so:

For the first time in my life, I hand quilted a quilt, and even though it took several months with my young children laying under the quilting frames, I think it was well worth it. Someday, I hope to be able to provide each of my children with at least one hand quilted piece quilt.