I really liked the Exploding Heart design when I saw it, so I decided that it would be my next project. It has 18 blocks in each of 18 rows, and the blocks finish at 4″ square. Well, who can’t manage a 4″ square, right? But the quilt is going to end up at 72″ x 72″, which is just about the largest I can still handle for quilting on my Bernina 790Pro. <gulp>
I selected blues and peachy oranges on a white background, though now I sort of wish I’d been able to find more prints instead of filling out the selections with several solids at the LQS. Making the six different kinds of blocks was really easy; the instructions are very clear. There is a chart showing how to put each row together to create the heart shape, so the biggest challenge is to make sure each block is in the right position and the right orientation.
This is what I’ve done so far — twelve rows of 18 blocks. The rows are long enough that I had to fold them in half to hang on my little design wall. If you lean your head toward your right shoulder, can you see the beginning of half of the heart? 😉
2 thoughts on “This one will be big!”
I’ve made this quilt with a friend. It was a challenge managing all that fabric and keeping them in the correct order. To make economical use of a black layer cake, we cut 4” (3.5” finished). It was too tricky to accurately cut four 5” squares from the 10” pack because of the pinked edges. We also used my electric AccuQuilt to cut these squares. It was super fast. Our exploding heart was a raffle prize for a golf tournament. It was pinks and greens with black background—a tribute to Wicked.
I don’t have an AccuQuilt, so I had to cut everything manually — should have thought to make the blocks a little smaller! LOL! I also bought yardage and FQs, rather than a layer cake. That was mainly because my LQS is in the middle of reorganization with new owners, so some of what they used to carry isn’t there right now. I’ll bet your black background with the pinks and greens was really striking!