Valentine - UFO

Remember this one?  It's been lurking in my UFO basket for nearly 9 years.  Time to pull it out and work on it.  My thought when I began it years ago, was to add more borders and some wording in the border.  I called it "Conversation Hearts" as the applique heart blocks have embroidered sayings in the center.  Just like the conversation heart candies.

 I got tired of it.  Trying to think past the business of the center and bringing some elements out to the border, it was just hard to concentrate on, so it ended up on the bottom of the basket until just the other day.  I pinned it up on my design board and sat across from it and stared at it for a while.  Dug out all the bits and pieces left over, then it slowly came to me.

I knew I wanted the words, "Be My Valentine", I just wasn't sure how I would arrange so few words around the entire border.  My bits and pieces were minimal so I couldn't make more words.  Why not bring the heart shape out into the border?  There was just enough pinks to cut some hearts out.  When I applique, I use a fusible and an interfacing on the reverse so that the stitching doesn't tunnel on the top.  The "interfacing" I used are clothes dryer sheets (used and saved).  Iron them flat onto the back of your applique shape and it will "stick" to your fabric if you sew around it right away.  I didn't have to use pins to hold it in place.  After you've stitched around the shape, just trim away the dryer sheet from the reverse close to the stitching.  Since the dryer sheet is very soft and fine, you could leave some of it attached, especially if your applique shape is really small, don't worry about trying to cut out every bit of it.

So this is the layout I liked the best.  I like the effect, the white in the border was needed to rest the eye from all that is going on in the center.  The wording and hearts pull the theme out of the center.  I don't want to add anymore confusion to it so my quilting will be an invisible thread in a simple design, probably large hearts and loops, free hand/free motion of course.

I have posted a step-by-step approach to binding a quilt here.  I want to add that instead of using a piece of cardboard for your binding spool, you could use an empty heavy cardboard roll from clingfilm or foil, and a little piece of 2 sided tape to hold the end to the roll.  Using the roll, it will be easy to unroll the binding while sewing and not leave any crease marks.

Instead of the binding being a tangled mess.....Use this to roll the binding to store until you need to sew it onto the quilt top.

The binding is ready to go and the top is now completed, but this is where I have stopped for now.  The next step is sandwiching, but it will have to wait a day or two.  I am just so happy to get this far on it.  No longer stalled on the design, it's decided and done, that alone feels like a big accomplishment.  And, there's a big void in my UFO basket!  ;o)