Spill Your Heart Out with Our Valentine Challenge! (There’s a FREE Pattern as Well)

Beyond that, though, Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating aching, hopeful, yearning . . . hearts. I can’t help it: I love a romantic ending. To me, every heart beat is an opportunity. As long as your heart thumps in your chest, you’re alive and you can do anything–like sending us a valentine for our challenge (click that heart icon for details!). We’ll award prizes and display the collection of entries in our newly inaugurated See How We Sew gallery (click for a preview) through the end of February.
Be mine Jack Sparrow, you black-hearted rogue!
Jack Sparrow’s valentine (click here to download PDF) was so much fun to make that I’ve placed the instructions in our Pattern Library to share. Also, take a look at my list of heart words and phrases before you start; you just might find unexpected inspiration for your own riff. At last count, after an evening spent in hearty brainwork, my snarky eldest son and I came up with an easy 114, and we’re still finding stupidly obvious ones we missed.
If I’ve whet your appetite for valentine fare, you can find much theme-appropriate creativity online. It’s astonishing to see the extent of the heart-shaped craft and quilting universe collected on image-compiling websites like Pinterest and Google Images. And that’s just the inedible category. Check out the mouthwatering heart-themed foods and candies at Google Images.
Craft & Quilting Valentine Resources
Sisters Marina and Daryl Lyn at Quilt Inspiration gather links to free quilt patterns from top designers at their fabulous blog:
Hearts & Valentines Part I: http://quiltinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/01/free-pattern-day-hearts-and-valentines.html
Hearts & Valentine Part II: http://quiltinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/01/free-pattern-day-hearts-and-valentines_04.html
The go-to page for the full Martha Stewart valentine array: http://www.marthastewart.com/276967/valentines-day?tab=index
So now that I’ve delivered a multifaceted valentine experience to you, do send us a photo of a heartfelt valentine that you’ve created by February 10, 2012, and perhaps you’ll win a prize?!?
