One of the nicest things about joining the Splendid Sampler Quilt-Along was discovering new (to me) quilters and designers. Christa Watson, who designed this block, was one of those discoveries. I love her blog and her easy and happy quilt designs. This was one of my favorite blocks to piece.

I have mixed feelings about my quilting, though. I wanted to try a feathered heart design that I found in a book, and it’s okay for a first attempt. I wanted to emphasize the roundness of the heart inside the blocky pieced design. But I don’t like the way the quilting thread shows up more on some patches than on others — I think it’s distracting. Unfortunately, it took me several blocks to learn that particular lesson, so there are a few coming up that have the same problem 🙂  There was a lot of traveling in this design, too, and clearly I’m still working on doing that neatly.

I do like the ferns in the two white triangles at the bottom. They frame the heart in a subtle and pretty way.

Scrappy Happy Heart is block 29 of the Splendid Sampler and was designed by Christa Watson.