“Hidden Hearts” – Free Block of the Month Quilt-Along – Month 9 Final
January 14, 2026
Hi!
Happy New Year!!!! I hope you had a good break over the Holidays, and that you’re ready to finally put your “Hidden Hearts” BOM quilt together. Don’t worry – you’ve already done all the tricky parts, and now it’s just a matter of getting all of those blocks together in order.
So without further ado, let’s get sewing!
You Will Need:
This month, you will need all of your pieced blocks, and the darker green and maroon fabrics.
Assembly:
This is a medallion style quilt, so we will piece the centre, then add borders. Refer to the photos and layout diagram for help in arranging your blocks.
Hidden Hearts Layout Diagram
Assembly:
To start, arrange the 9 Grecian Square blocks from Month 1 in a 3 x 3 grid as shown.
Note – the corners need to be arranged so you get 4 pink diamonds in the centre.
Sew into rows and press seams in opposite directions between rows, then join the rows together and press well.
Now add your Month 3 Clay’s Choice blocks. Again, take note of block placement.
Sew three blocks into a row for each side of the centre unit. Press seams, then sew a strip to either side of the centre as pictured.
Press.
Now join the remainder into two strips of 5 blocks.
Press, then join to top and bottom to finish this first border.
Press well.
Now sew two sets of 5 of your Month 2 Snowball blocks into strips, and add to the sides of your quilt.
Press.
Sew the remaining 14 blocks into two strips of 7 blocks each for top and bottom, and sew to your quilt.
Press well.
Arrange 14 of your Month 4 Birds in the Air blocks as pictured. NOTE – they are NOT the same for both sides – refer to photos and layout diagram.
Sew into strips and join the strips to the sides of your quilt, as pictured. Press.
Layout the remaining 18 blocks in two strips of 9 blocks for top and bottom. Again, be careful with the layout of these blocks and refer to the photos.
Join the blocks into strips, and sew them to top and bottom of your quilt.
Press well.
This completes the centre part of your quilt. You will need to piece four corner triangle units now.
The four corner triangle units are all pieced the same way.
From the orange fabric, cut 2 squares measuring 7 x 7 inches and cross cut diagonally once. This will give you the 4 corner plain orange triangles for each of these units.
As pictured, arrange the corner units as follows – first, the orange triangle, then 3 of your Month 6 Pinwheel blocks; 5 of your Month 7 Friendship star blocks; 7 of your Month 8 Contrary Wife blocks (be careful of block placement); and finally 9 of your Month 5 Spool blocks.
Sew them into rows and press seams in opposite directions between rows. The blocks all line up, with a ‘stepped’ edge as shown on the right-hand side of this photo.
Join the rows together to make your triangle, then lay your triangle out on a large flat surface, and trim the stepped edges to make one straight edge as shown on the left-hand side. Make sure to leave a ¼ inch seam allowance past the 45 degree halfway line, so you don’t lose any points.
Keep your offcuts for our bonus project!!
Finally, join the four large triangles to your quilt top and press seams well.
Can you see your Hidden Hearts now?
Finish your quilt top with two borders.
For the first:
From your darker green fabric, cut strips 2 inches wide. You will need to join strips to get the required length.
Measure your quilt top and cut two strips for the sides. Sew in place and press well.
Measure again, and cut and join strips to top and bottom to complete your first border. Press well.
The second border is from your maroon fabric. As you did for the first, measure your quilt, and cut and join sufficient 4 inch wide strips to make the side borders. Sew in place and press.
Measure again, and cut and sew strips for your top and bottom borders. Sew to your quilt and press well, and you’ve finished!
Quilting:
Place your backing fabric face down on a flat surface, then smooth the batting on top. Put your quilt top on top of that, centred and smoothed flat. Pin the layers together in preparation for quilting.
You may like to quilt yours with an edge to edge design, or have some fun with it and design custom quilting for each of the borders, making sure to highlight your big heart shapes.
Finishing:
Trim the batting and backing to match your quilt top.
Cut sufficient 2¼ inch binding strips from the maroon fabric and join together with 45 degree seams. Press the ¼ inch seams open, then fold the strip in half, right sides out and press.
Join the binding to the right side of the quilt edge with a quarter inch seam, mitring each corner as you go. Turn the folded edge of the binding to the back and slip stitch it in place with thread that matches the binding to finish.
==================================================================================
BONUS PROJECT
It’s time to use up some of those offcuts for a fun little project or projects to complement your quilt.
We chose the following size for ours, for its versatility. The size of this square quilt means it could be used for a European size pillow, a table mat, or wallhanging. Make yours to suit. You could go bigger, for a floor cushion, or rectangular for a table runner if that’s more useful for you.
We arranged our offcut triangles five to a side as shown.
We found a pattern we liked, but you could keep it completely random and scrappy if you’d prefer.
Sew the three side triangles together as pictured.
Remember, you have already cut off extra from these – you’re going to lose points, so don’t worry about it. You hardly notice it in the finished project anyway!
When piecing these together, aim to keep the sides as straight as you can. Match seams when you can, but it’s better to keep these strips of an even width.
Join the corner triangles in pairs.
Measure yours first to check, but we cut the centre square to measure 16½ x 16½ inches.
Join the sides and press.
Add top and bottom and press well.
Finally, add the triangles to the corners. Press, and square up the panel.
We added a thin border to ours.
Measure to check the sides, then cut two strips 1¼ inches wide, by the measured length, and sew them in place.
Measure again, and cut two strips 1¼ inches wide to add to top and bottom to finish.
What you do from here is up to you. Quilt it and add a couple of large overlapped fabric rectangles to the back, for a simple pillow cover.
Quilt and bind for a table topper, or embroider a fun saying in the centre, or quilt a motif, and hang it on your wall.
You may like to piece a couple of extra leftover triangle strips for down the front edge of a pair of pillowcases too.
And that’s it! I do hope you’ve enjoyed this sampler-style Block of the Month quilt, and please leave a comment below as I’d love to hear your thoughts on this project. And don’t forget photos – please email me a picture of your quilt – I’m really excited to see yours too!!! ( jody@onlinequiltmagazine.com )
I have a bunch more quilt patterns almost ready to go now too, so finish you this quilt, and I’ll be ready when you are.
Enjoy!
2 responses to ““Hidden Hearts” – Free Block of the Month Quilt-Along – Month 9 Final”
Leave a Reply
Welcome to our
Online Quilt Magazine Blog
Read through to discover hints and tips, articles from magazine contributors, sneak peeks and more!
Please enter your email address in the box below to receive notification of
new posts by email.
Thanks Jody, You are serious when you say “all scraps will be used!”
I need to get my last few rows together so I can get this assembled. I am very impressed with using a single block to design a whole row, very clever and showy!
And to think I have the finish before the day has even star
ted, guess that shows we do live on the same round ball.
In Stitches, Kathy in Colorado , USA
🙂 I’m so pleased you’re making this quilt too, Kathy, and I do hope you send me a photo when you’re finished – I’m excited to see yours!!