Love You To the Moon Quilt Square

Have you heard about the Quilt Block Challenge over at Happy Hour Projects?  Adrianne is having a contest and asking for crafters to submit 12x12" quilt blocks.  You can make them using any kind of methods you like and submit them to her link up through August 19, then she and the judges will choose a Top 12, which will then be voted on by readers.



I really wanted to participate {I love me a good challenge}, but here's my little secret.  Quilting totally intimidates me!  I've never made a quilt or even a quilt block unless you count a project I did in high school that was all planned out by the teacher anyway.  I really didn't know where to start, until all of a sudden I got the best idea ever.

Here's the background...Little Crafter and I do this thing when we talk about how much we love each other.  It started with the book Guess How Much I Love You and we'd say "I love you to the moon and back."  Then it turned into "I love you to the moon and back a hundred million times" or "I love you to the farthest star and back."  Then, we got another book called   {it's so cute!} and our conversation turned into something like this:

"I love you higher than the highest star in the sky."
"I love you taller than the tallest tree that ever grew."
"I love you farther than the farthest rocketship ever flew."
"I love you longer than the longest path ever walked."
"I love you better than the best Starbucks treat I ever had."
...and so on and so on...we just keep making up new things.

So, my idea is to make him a quilt where every square illustrates one of those things we say about our love for each other.  Yeah.  Totally intimidating.  I know.  I started with one that illustrates the original, "I love you to the moon and back," and I'm thinking I'll use that as the center square and build everything else around it.  So...here it is:

And here's how I did it:

STEP 1: First, I cut my 12x12 square of blue fabric using a piece of scrapbook paper as a pattern.

STEP 2: I ironed Heat-n-bond Light onto white, yellow, and green fabric and cut out the shapes I wanted.  Then, I ironed them in place on the square.

STEP 3: I used a zig-zag machine stitch to secure the edges of my shapes.

STEP 4: I ironed Heat-n-bond onto brown fabric and sketched the nutbrown hares onto it.  Then, I carefully {ugh} cut them out and ironed them onto the square. 

STEP 5: I hand-stitched around these guys since there was really no way to do it {well} with the machine.  It took me at least a solid hour to finish those *@?! adorable little bunnies.

STEP 6: I lightly wrote my words in pencil on the white rectangles, then traced them with black fabric paint.

STEP 7: I adhered Heat-n-bond Lite to red and white fabric, sketched and cut these letters, then ironed them together.

STEP 8: Then I ironed it onto the square and traced around the edges of the letters in the same fabric paint...no way was I hand-stitching anything else!  Meanwhile, puff paint and I have a love-hate relationship.  It makes me crazy how it tends to go smoothly then all of a sudden, pfffft!  You know what I mean!  I realized about halfway through that I was holding my breath as I traced...

STEP 9: I machine stitched around the final white rectangle once all of the paint was dry.

STEP 10: With white and brown fabric paint and a brush, I added detail to the nutbrown hares.

STEP 11: The finishing touch was adding glitter fabric paint to the "sky."  As LC and I always say, "Glitter makes everything better!"  I know he'll approve for sure!

Whew!  I've made a few of the other squares since, and they weren't quite as time intensive as this one {thank goodness}!  I'll be showing you those soon.  Well, I'm off to link up to the contest...wish me luck!