Quilted Valentine Hearts Pillow Tutorial

Welcome to my Quilted Valentine Hearts Pillow Tutorial! This is a great scrap buster project, a fabulous way to try out some new skills and a just a fun, bright pillow for the holiday!

Here's what you are going to need:

Scraps! I used red, pink and one aqua for a color pop.

1 1/4 yards white fabric

3/8 yard of coordinating fabric for ruffle

19" square piece of batting

3, 7/8" covered button kit or 3 regular buttons

Lite Steam-a-Seam 2 (or other fusible web)

Step One: Download the heart pattern here.

Cut out 17 hearts from different scraps. Cut 17 hearts from Steam-a-Seam (or follow the directions for your fusible web). Peal off the backing and stick one Steam-a-Seam to each heart.

Cut the white fabric into the following pieces:

2- 19" square pieces

1- 18" x 12" piece

1- 18" x 15" piece

 

Take the ruffle fabric and cut 4, 3" strips by the width of fabric.

 

Set the strips aside, we'll get to those later. :)

Take one 19" piece of white fabric and arrange the hearts evenly as shown in the picture. The pink and red hearts should be 1/2" apart horizontally from the widest parts of the hearts and 1" apart vertically from the bottom tip to the dip in the top. The aqua heart is 1" apart horizontally from the widest part of the hearts and 1" apart vertically from the bottom tip to the top of the aqua heart.

After the hearts are placed where you want them, iron them onto the fabric following manufacturers directions.

Next step: Make a quilt sandwich! Lay the other piece of 19" square fabric down (you can tape down the sides), place the batting on top and then your finished heart top on top of the batting. Baste with basting pins.

The next thing I did was use a disappearing purple ink pen and draw a 1/8" line around each heart and on the inside of each heart. Then with free motion quilting, I followed the lines and stitched around each heart with white thread. Then I used a hot pink thread and stitched around the inside of each heart. You don't have to do this step if you don't want to, but it gives the hearts a nice finished and puffy look.  

 Next is the fun part! I have learned to love free motion quilting. It's really soothing and therapeutic for me. If you have not tried it, this is a great small project to try it on. Try practicing on another quilt sandwich first if you are not comfortable. Remember to use your darning foot and lower you feed dogs!

When you are done quilting, cut down the sides so that your pillow top is 18" square.

Great work so far, isn't it cute!? It actually took a few days for those purple lines to go away, but they did go away.

The next thing I did was was a simple straight embroidery stitch around the aqua heart with 4 strands of bright pink embroidery thread.

  Wha-la! Gives it a little more pop!

Okay, it's time to grab those ruffle strips. Cut the selvages off of each strip. Next we need to sew them together to make one long strip. Use the same method as you would for binding strips. Place the two strips at right angles. Using a ruler, draw a diagonal line from corner to corner just off center so the line is centered. 

 Pin the strips together and sew along the line. Repeat until all strips are together.

Fold the new strip in half and press.

Set your machine length to between 4 and 5, a basting stitch.

Stitch your ruffle strip 1/8" from the edge and then again 1/4" from the edge. Pull the threads and gather the strip evenly.

 Pin the ruffle onto your pillow top.

Still using a basting stitch, baste the ruffle onto the pillow top.

Final stretch baby! We are going to work on the back of the pillow. *Note: if you don't have a button hole stitch (or don't want to deal with it:), you can just sew an 18" square piece of fabric to the back.* Take both back pieces and press up 1/4" along the 18" side.

 

Then fold over 3" and press again.

Stitch the flap closed using the 1/4" pressed seam as your guide. Do this for both sides.

Place the longer side flap over the shorter flap so it covers it. Stitch a basting stitch along the top and the bottom to keep those intact.

Pin the back pieces onto the pillow top with the ruffle inside.

Stitch a 1/2" seam. If you have a serger, serge the edges to get rid of fraying and bulk. You can also use a zig zag stitch on a regular machine. Yahoo! You are almost done!

The last step is add your button holes and buttons. Use this picture as a guide for button hole placement. The middle button is centered at 9". The side buttons should come in centered at 4" from each side. Make your button holes according to the size of your buttons.

I used 7/8" covered buttons and used more scraps to make matching buttons. 

 I also decided at the last minute to add another heart to the back of my pillow. I used the embroidery stitch around it as well.

Congratulations! You did it! If you make this pillow, I would love to see it! Please add it to the Craft Sew Create Flickr group and I might just put it on my blog!

Happy Creating!
This post is part of a linky party at Today's Creative Blog!