Lift Your Heart!

It's a term that I hear a lot in my Yoga class. I like the phrase as it not only provides the physical benefit of opening up the lungs for proper breathing and improving posture, but also because it encourages one to be of an open heart and mind. 

I started working on this quilt a few months ago. I had a small pile of pink fabrics leftover from another project. I started by laying the fabrics out on my wall:

Thought about adding different coloured fabrics:

Made more 'boxes' and rearranged them a few times.

But I was not excited about any of the arrangements. Until I came up with the idea of stacking them (inspired by this quilt). 

I wanted to make sure that the stack of boxes fell right down the center of the quilt so I hung a black ribbon down the middle of my design wall, found the center of each box and lined them all up.

They are all centered here, except the last one.

Next I added a free-pieced heart at the top and Kona white as the negative space.

This quilt really came to life for me once the heart was added.

I quilted it in a diamond shaped cross-hatch pattern. I love the texture that this gives.

The name of the quilt is featured on the back with some free-pieced letters and a scrappy heart.

Lift Your Heart!

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Stats:

Largest quilt I ever made (65 X 86), a generous twin-size.

Used Quilter's Dream batting 'Select' instead of my usual 'Request'.  Not a good idea as it was considerably heavier.  Had a very sore shoulder after quilting it. 

Used Kona White and various shades of Kona Pinks (except for the Blush pink. That was purchased at a local fabric shop).