Graffiti Hearts | Coral Version

For my second Graffiti Hearts quilt, I decided to go subtle and soft with a range of coral prints. I wanted to see how this pattern handled prints and a limited color palette. I’m happy to say I love BOTH in this coral graffiti hearts quilt!

I pulled out various coral prints from my stash, enjoying remembering which quilts I used them in or where I purchased them. There’s a lot of happy memories wrapped up in this bundle of coral fabrics! Once I had my fabrics chosen, I organized them from lightest to darkest to assign them a color in the quilt. You can learn more about creating a monochrome Graffiti Hearts quilt here.

I had a hard time choosing a background fabric. In the end, I had three fabrics in my stash that would all have worked just fine. I ended up with this creamy white fabric with gold dots. Two blocks in, I wasn’t sure I had made the right choice, but once the quilt started coming together, I fell in love with it completely.

The great thing about Graffiti Heart’s construction is that you can create all your blocks before having to decide on a background fabric. So that’s exactly what I did – I created my blocks and auditioned them on different fabrics to select the one I liked best. Riley helped, of course.

Once the top was together, it was time to think about backing! As this quilt was completed entirely from my stash, I really wanted the backing to be a stash find too. I rifled around for a while and then spotted it – the ostriches doing ballet flannel sheet set. YES. This was totally a sheet set that I,

1. Found on clearance
2. Thought was amazing and bought it
3. Loved it for about a week
4. And then realized how utterly specialized and weird it was and how hard it would be to match it up with a quilt, thus giving me buyer’s remorse.

But, as it turns out, there are weirder things in life than finding a match for very strange and fun flannel sheet sets as I just loved how these two looked together. Graffiti Hearts is an edgy and modern quilt pattern, and even in this more soft and subtle palette, I liked the idea of emphasizing the fun with a crazy backing. (Learn more about using sheets as backings!)

Because the backing to this coral graffiti hearts quilt was a sheet set, it meant I had enough backing for both Graffiti Hearts and the second quilt I made with my offcuts!

Using the offcuts (ahem, scraps), from Graffiti Hearts, I created a second quilt. For this quilt, I chose to make the hearts out of the white fabric and improv piece the background out of my leftover coral stash. I used up so many little leftover fabrics which is really fun! It means less ends up in my scrap bins. Woohoo!

The improv pieced quilt doesn’t have instructions, as I really did wing most of it. I did 4″ finished sashing around the blocks, 6″ sashing around the outside of the blocks, and because I wanted it even bigger, I added a piano key border around the outside. (each piece in the piano key border is 1.5″ x 4″ finished). If you want to learn how to make these hearts out of your Graffiti Hearts offcuts, check out this step-by-step tutorial!

I love companion quilts, so this pair of coordinating quilts makes me super happy. I’ve basted both of them and am slowly working on hand-quilting them. They will both be hand-quilted in the same thread color (Aurifil #6722 in 28 weight). The coral Graffiti Hearts quilt is getting a baptist fan motif and the improv heart quilt is getting an orange peel design! I thread basted both of these quilts, it is my preferred basting method for long-term hand quilting projects. You can learn all about thread basting here!

Graffiti Hearts is such a fun pattern to make, and it works well for both bright and bold color palettes as well as soft and subdued. Pattern is available in my shop in both PDF and paper formats!

Shop Related Products: