Hello Hearts! Sew a Scrappy Heart Quilt Pattern

I have an adaptation to my Hello Hearts! quilt pattern for you today. In this post I’ll share how I turned it into a scrappy heart quilt pattern. It’s easy, great fun and a good way to try and keep those scraps under control.

So the pattern is the throw size of my Hello Hearts! quilt pattern – you can see my original version in this earlier post. In my original version my heart quilt blocks are all the same and made with solid fabrics. In this scrappy version no two heart blocks are the same, which I love!

Sewing the scrappy heart quilt blocks

The first thing you need to do is plan out your heart quilt block colours and where they’ll go in your quilt. The Hello Hearts! quilt pattern has printable colour in sheets that you can use for this purpose.

For me, I knew I wanted to go rainbow colours, in colour order. I had a bit of a think about which colour family I wanted to go where. Then I counted how many heart quilt blocks of each colour I’d need.

The Hello Hearts! quilt pattern has the measurements for every heart block component, so it was easy to cut them all out as per my block requirements. I found it easiest to cut 2 or 3 different heart components from the one scrap fabric, before moving on to the next fabric. Once I’d cut the majority, I’d fill in any last pieces with one-off, smaller scraps.

My aim was to not have the same fabric in the same position of any two hearts. I think I achieved that – I’d have to have a really close look and see!

Sewing a scrappy background fabric

A big decision you’ll need to make early in your planning is whether you will use a single background fabric, or go scrappy. I planned to go with a single fabric at first, but the only adequate yardage I had on hand was the same as my first quilt. I love that fabric but I wanted to sew something different so the decision was really made for me to go completely scrappy. When I pulled out my heaving low volume scrap bag I realised it was absolutely the right decision!

Scrappy background fabric for the heart quilt blocks

This part is very easy. The block sewing instructions tell you exactly what size background components are required in the heart quilt blocks.

I like to cut my background in bulk, so I counted up how many heart blocks were in the entire throw size quilt. Then I cut that number of each component. I have a pretty extensive low volume scrap pile so I stuck to those fabrics primarily with black/grey/blue/green colours.

Scrappy background fabric for sashing

This was a great opportunity to get rid of some long, skinny scraps. (Think of the long off cuts from a completed long arm quilt.) I pulled out all my orphan low volume jelly roll strips too – they worked really well for this. With the longer scraps (and jelly roll strips) I did cut them up a bit. I didn’t want any one strip to stand out.

I sewed all my strips and scraps together into several very long lengths of sashing. Then I cut the strips to the required sizes as I started laying the heart quilt blocks out.

Scrappy background fabric for side setting and corner triangles.

At first I was tempted to just use whole fabrics for the setting triangles. But I knew they would stand out and detract from the scrappiness across the whole quilt. So, *deep sigh*, I had to create scrappy setting triangles too.

I grabbed a mix of smaller and larger scraps and sewed them together in large blocks.

Once it was big enough, I cut out the large squares required for the setting and corner triangles.

Then these squares were cut down to give the triangles.

There were a few non-scrappy triangles that eventuated upon cutting (see the one on the left, above). I would just take them and sew them again to various other pieces (or other not-scrappy-enough triangles) until I had another suitable square.

Quilting, Backing and Binding

Once my scrappy heart quilt pattern was a completed quilt top, I sent it off for long arm quilting. Jos from Free Style Quilts did a fabulous job with a baptist fan quilting pattern.

Backing

Is there any feeling as good as discovering a leftover piece of wide back fabric suitable for your quilt? I had mentally prepared myself for a good hour of sewing together fat quarters to give a pieced backing. Then I discovered a run of this wonderful newspaper print in my cupboard. Yahoo!

Quilt Binding

Because of the super-scrappiness of the quilt I decided to have a single binding fabric. Luckily, I had a larger cut of a navy and white geometric print which fit the bill perfectly.

I machine sewed the binding on and then glue basted it in place. I finished the binding with a zigzag machine stitch to keep it all super secure. You can see my instructions for zigzag binding a quilt in this blog post over here.

And that’s the story of my scrappy Hello Hearts! throw sized quilt.

It’s definitely not hard to convert a yardage pattern to scraps. But I will say it takes A LOT longer to sew up a scrappy quilt. You lose the economies of cutting yardage as you paw through all your scrap bags. Sashing in particular takes quite a while to piece compared to cutting out lovely long WOF strips. And don’t underestimate how long you’ll spend admiring all your old fabrics again! Ha! Despite all this, I think it was well worth it.

This scrappy heart quilt pattern is a beautiful representation of so many of the fabrics I’ve worked with recently. And it didn’t require a single fabric purchase; I made it entirely from scrap and stash. I took those savings and spent them all on some beautiful long arm quilting, which I love!

If you’d like to make your own Hello Hearts! quilt (in baby, throw, twin, queen or king size) you can find the PDF pattern here in my shop.

Cheers,

Kirsty

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