“Have a Heart” Quilted Pillow

February 5, 2025

Hi!

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it’s time to grab some pretty scraps and make our “Have a Heart” quilted heart pillow, to pop on your sofa or bed, or gift to a special someone.

This is a fun patchwork quilt-as-you-go pillow too. It is a great technique for using up your scraps, so you can ‘theme’ your pillow by fabrics, or colours, as you like.

 

“Have a Heart” Quilted Pillow

Our pillow measures approx. 17 inches wide x 13 inches high.

 

You Will Need:

An assortment of coordinated fabrics – small pieces and scraps will be fine
One larger piece of fabric for the pillow back. A fat quarter should be sufficient.
¾ yard / metre fabric for the backing
Equivalent / Small amount of batting
Pillow stuffing
Large piece of paper to make the template

Assembly:

This time, you can draw your own heart template!

Fold your paper in half, and draw your half heart shape from the folded edge.

Use a dinner plate for the curve, and position it as shown, so the curve is part-way off the edge of the paper.
Trace around it with a pencil.

Now use your ruler to draw a straight line from the curve to the folded edge.

Remember, the shorter the line, the rounder and fatter your heart shape. We drew ours as pictured, as we wanted this kind of cute round heart shape for our pillow.

Cut out the shape…

… and open out for your heart template.

To make your quilted heart pillow front, lay a piece of backing fabric face down on a flat surface, then layer a piece of batting on top.

Trace around your heart template as pictured (with pencil), to give you the outline that you need to cover with fabric. Also trace the heart shape to the right side of the backing fabric.

Align your heart shapes and pin the layers together so they don’t shift.

To start this quilt-as-you-go technique, place a piece of fabric face up on the heart shape.

Take a second piece of fabric, and place with right sides together.

Sew across the bottom edge (through all layers), the open out and smooth into place.

Add a third piece to cover the top of the heart in exactly the same way.

You can continue adding fabric pieces in this way, but you will find that at some point you will need to piece some first, then join that pieced strip to your heart shape.

Position the joined strip so that the edges of the previous strip will be covered.

Sew with right sides together and open out.

Quilt in the ditch for the joining seams on this new strip, to quilt the fabrics to the layers underneath.

Continue adding pieces and pieced strips to your pillow front.

Your fully covered heart shape.

Using the matched heart shape drawn on the right side of the backing, turn over and cut out your quilted heart pillow front.

We made our pillow back with a single piece of feature fabric, but you may piece yours again if you wish.

Layer the backing fabric, batting and back panel fabric and pin together.

Trace the heart shape carefully on the right side, and quilt as you like to hold the layers together.

Cut out your quilted heart pillow back shape.

With right sides together, pin front and back quilted heart panels together.

Leave about a 5-6 inch gap on one of the straight edges, and sew around the rest to join the panels together.

Carefully clip around the curves, so that your pillow will turn and sit nicely.

Turn your pillow right sides out and stuff gently with pillow stuffing. When it has been filled to your liking, tuck in the seam allowances at the gap and hand stitch it closed.

Ta dah! One quilted heart pillow ready for use or gifting.

 

Enjoy, and let me know what you think of this pattern (or if you make a heart for yourself too)!