Ticker Tape Heart Rainbow

Welcome to this week's TGIFF party! Before we get to the finish I'm sharing, did you know that registration is open for the Roman Adventure QAL and Devotional Journey? It's a 40 day QAL with daily devotions as we prepare for Easter. Get all the details here!

Here at Devoted Quilter headquarters, it's not only the quilting projects that sometimes wait a long time to be finished. Some blog posts have to wait for months, too 😅 Case in point, I started this post back in June, shortly after hosting the Ticker Tape Heart block challenge. I even had the pictures of the quilt taken (which is usually my sticking point), but apparently I got distracted and then I didn't come back to finish writing the post until this week. Oh well, after a few months of waiting, I'm happy to share my Ticker Tape Heart Rainbow baby quilt with you.

Since the pictures were taken in June, they have green grass and bare beach rocks rather than the abundance of snow on the ground around here right now.

It was a lot of fun to share this applique technique through the three day Ticker Tape Heart challenge. If you missed it back in the spring, don't worry! You can still sign up for the challenge right here and the daily emails will be sent to your inbox along with the free pattern.

I made 9 Ticker Tape Heart blocks leading up to the challenge so I could make a rainbow of hearts. With some 2 1/2" sashing and a 4" border, they make a great baby quilt.

Since I have my scraps sorted by colour, it was easy to work on one block at a time without needing to rummage through all my scraps. Whichever colour block I was working on, I just dumped that box of scraps onto the table to root through them and see what I wanted to use for the block. I found a lot of fabrics I hadn't seen in a long time, especially in the fullest boxes, since I hadn't dug down to the bottom of them in a while.

If you'd like to get your scraps sorted in the way that makes the most sense for the kinds of quilts you like to make, check out my free PDF guide, Escape Scrap Overwhelm.

The blue heart was the first one I made, and I cut those scraps larger than I did for any of the other blocks. So even though I have the most blue scraps, there are the fewest ticker tape pieces on the blue heart. There are also no repeats on the blue block, and I'm pretty sure that's the only block with no repeats.

For the Ticker Tape Heart block, you can stitch around the appliques when the block is still just a block, or you can sew the whole top together and baste it first, then stitch around the appliques and do the quilting all in one step. I chose to stitch around the appliques with the quilting, which gives the blocks great texture. This could be done with a walking foot, but I always choose to use my free motion foot because I prefer not to have to turn the quilt a bazillion times to go around all the small squares and rectangles.

I chose a rainbow of Aurifil thread for the hearts, plus Dove Grey (2600) for quilting the background. 

Hearts quilted into the background seemed like a given, don't you think? Can a heart baby quilt have too many hearts?

With this bright blue backing, all these thread colours show up nicely. This is why I love solid fabrics for quilt backs!

I debated making a scrappy binding, but then decided to go with this stripe print. It's not quite a rainbow, but it is pretty colourful and I think it gives a nice frame to the quilt.

If you'd like to make your own Ticker Tape Heart quilt, sign up for the challenge here for the free pattern and the videos full of tips for making your blocks.

Now it's your turn! What have you finished recently? Or not so recently, but you finally got around to sharing it? Link it up below, and don't forget to visit some of the other links and celebrate their finishes, too.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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