Project Quilting 12.2 - Fussy Cut

Starting a new Project Quilting challenge always causes a quandary for me, as I'm sure it does for a lot of people.  What do I make?  What do I WANT to make? Should I make a big project? Or something little?  How much time do I have to devote to the project this week? All these thoughts run through my head and I mull them over for a few days while I try to figure it out.  

It seems that I've been making a lot of mug rugs and potholders.  These are not bad ideas; they are actually great ways to try a new technique or color combination.  They are also good if you really aren't sure that you are going to like the result!  I don't mind using something I don't particularly like as a potholder.  I can always use new ones, since potholders get a lot of abuse in my house.  Mug rugs also get a lot of use, since my family tends to carry mugs, glasses and cups all over the house. So I like having extra mug rugs sitting around to protect the furniture.

That said, I am a bit tired of making mug rugs and potholders.  But I also don't want to start another big quilt project.  I have so many UFOs that I feel guilty starting something else.    

While I was debating what to make, I ran across a Facebook post by Karen Montgomery in her Nine Patch a Day group.  She showed a cute little heart that she made as a gift card holder for one of her grandkids.  She sewed 1 1/2 inch squares together into a 16 patch block, quilted it, then cut a heart out of it.  All the details are here: https://karensquiltroom.blogspot.com/?fbclid=IwAR1OwdLE6qi5dzVs9JHk97sDCN4mF0AhB42d6dtJa8oGpQGKGFhapRhyTwU

I had my project!  I dug through my scraps looking for something that I could fussy cut.  Since the squares are only 1 inch finished, a lot of the novelty fabrics that I have weren't suitable.  I found some leftover pieces of a Valentine themed jelly roll that had some cute little dark pink roses on it.  And I found some coordinating pink charm squares, to use for the alternate squares, the backing and the pocket on the back. 

I've never done any fussy cutting, so it took me some time to figure it out. After some mental gymnastics, I realized that all I had to do was center the roses in a one inch square on my ruler and add a quarter inch for the seam all around it.  Like I said, it was a lot of easier than I was making it!

For me, the hard part was arranging the squares so that the roses were centered. And again, I ended up making it harder than it should have been. I wanted a checkerboard effect, and I only had 3 identical rose squares.  I wanted them to be arranged so that there were two in the wide part of the heart and one at the pointy part of the heart.  The directions called for making a 16 patch, which would cause the roses to be offset.  After several (many!) tries, I ended up sewing a rectangle that was 5 x 4 blocks which worked out nicely.  

It didn't need much quilting, so I quilted it along the vertical seams only, using a decorative star stitch. 

Digging through my ribbon bin yielded a pretty pink grosgrain ribbon, which coordinated perfectly!  I used it for the bow and also a loop to hang it with. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I like it!