Mother’s Day Quilted Wall Hanging

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! While celebrating with my mom this year, I remembered a gift I had given to her a couple years ago – a small quilted wall hanging that hangs in her bedroom. It celebrates her gift of love to me, and my appreciation for all that she has taught me.

The design sprang from using triangle scraps from another project. I couldn’t let myself throw out these beautiful batik and cream triangles all neatly stacked up, so I sewed them together and saved them as strips.

I began with the two main elements, the heart and the printed fabric quote. I drew out the heart on graph paper, then cut squares and half square triangles to assemble and sew into the heart shape.

Then I found a quote, added my name and the year made, and printed it with my home inkjet printer. (I know you’ve heard this before but it’s always good to remind ourselves: It is a must to label your work with your name and date. It is a historical record that makes a piece special for the future!) A little hint to incorporate the printed fabric into the piece is to scan the fabric to use as a background for your text – no more plain white!

The hardest part of this piece was doing the math to fit the two main elements with the triangles frame. Once I had a width of the inner frame needed to make the triangle frame fit correctly, I cut up more batik scraps to make patchwork strips.

I assembled the quilt top, added the batting and backing fabric, and pinned the quilt sandwich together for quilting. I used a combination of lines and free motion with a contrasting gold-colored thread. Then added binding in the same red fabric as the heart.

I love how this piece turned out with the bright batik colors and the cream. You can’t really go wrong with combining batiks – they are so dreamy and magical. They shine with the contrast of the subtle cream fabric. And I love when I can use scraps from my stash. Very crafty.

Best of all I love how it made my mom smile when she received it!