Heart Art Quiltie for February

I am hosting another Art Quilitie mingle!! The theme for February is Heart - you just need to include a heart in your design any way you wish - fabric, stitching or embellishment.
I started by cutting a 5"x 5" piece of white on white quilting fabric and stamping words on it with my magnetic Making Memories alphabet stamps in "Soft Stone" Memories ink.  The words are the qualities of love - kind, patient, polite, joyous, calm, forgiving, etc. After that I stamped a beautiful LOVE (QF) in red after making a heart outline in pencil to ensure good placement.  I stitched pearl seed beads all along the heart outline, added a 4" batting to the back and sewed on all of my white and pearl buttons starting

with the one at the bottom and adding as I went.  When I got to the middle I added the little red heart button and kept going.   Once, I was finished, I added a five inch square of red fabric over the front, stitched around the edge with my sewing machine leaving a gap to allow me to turn it inside out.  Once it was right side out, I stitched up the gap and added blanket stitch all the way around the edge using white embroidery floss. Traditionally, the line of the blanket stitch is left on the outside edge, instead I stitched mine leaving the line about a quarter inch inside the outside edge giving it a different look.
I love the way it turned out!!  I added my credits to the back using iron on fabric labeling tape, hand lettered a quote with a fine tip sharpie and embellished the whote back area with white french knots.
It will be on its way to my partner by the end of the week.  You can check out the other art quilties I have made  - October, November and January.  I am hoping to continue to get participation so we will all have a good number of pages to sew up into a project.

Therese