Selvage Heart Quilt Block Tutorial

I’ve been playing with my selvage stash lately and I made several of these selvage heart quilt blocks. I want to share the quilting tutorial with you! It’s so easy and turns out very fun— A great beginner project!

Selvage Hearts

This quilting tutorial will show you how to make a heart block made from selvages.

What you’ll need:

Selvage strips, various widths and values

Solid fabric for background and sashing/borders (– at least 22 inches of selvages of the background fabric is also needed–if you don’t have the enough selvage edge of background fabric, there is another way and I will explain at the end of the post)

Muslin (I used light-weight batiste, because that’s what I had on hand)

Cutting Instructions

From muslin, cut:

4 – 5″ squares of muslin

From white background fabric, cut:

2 selvage edge pieces: 3 1/2″ long (this is the selvage edge) x 1 3/4″ wide

2 selvage edge pieces: 7 1/2″ long (this is the selvage edge) x 4″ wide

2 – 2″ squares

4 border pieces (I cut mine 2 1/2″ wide)

Sewing Instructions

I pressed my seams open. There’s a lot of bulk going on and I chose to combat it this way. You can press how you like 🙂

I recommend using dark colored (or high value) selvages next to the white background fabrics, to help highlight the heart shape.

Make the Selvage Blocks on the Diagonal

One by one, sew the selvages onto the muslin squares, adding the white background selvages last. Check out this post for more help. Make sure to add the smaller white selvage strips to the very top outside corners of 2 squares and the larger background selvages to the outside corners on 2 blocks.

Here’s the step-by-step:

Lower Squares

1. When the lower 2 squares have selvages sewn to a little over the halfway point, stop adding selvages and trim the edges for neat 5″ squares.

2.Add the white selvages last and line up the selvage edge to the center (corner to corner). Trim the extra for neat 5″ squares. Like this:

Upper Squares

1.When the upper squares are almost entirely covered with selvages, stop and trim the edges for neat 5″ squares.

2.Add the white selvages last and place the selvage edges 2″ from the corner. Like this:

3.Draw a diagonal lines on the wrong side of the 2″ squares, corner to corner.

4.Pin and sew the 2″ squares on the top edge inside corners of the 6″ blocks, right sides together, sewing on the line or just next to the drawn line.

5.Trim the corner, leaving a 1/4″ seam allowance and press.

Finish the Block

1.Sew the 2 upper squares right sides together and press.

2.Sew the 2 lower squares right sides together and press.

3.Sew the 2 sections together and press.

4.Add borders if you like.

5.Finish it as it is or sew more blocks and make a bigger project!

Sew the Lower Blocks without Selvages (HST method)

If you don’t have enough selvage edge on your background fabric, then sew the 2 lower squares using a half square triangle method.

1.Cut 2 squares from the background fabric, each 5 7/8″.

2.Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each square, corner to corner.

3. Pin the white squares to the selvage squares right sides together. Sew 1/4″ from the diagonal line on both sides.

4.Cut along the drawn line and press each half.

5.Trim and square up the blocks to 5″.

If you sew the white square this way: (instead of having the drawn line parallel to the sewn selvages)

You’ll have this block for an additional look. Here’s the one I made this way.

And I found some nice Valentine’s Day appropriate words on some of my selvages!

Hope you enjoy this tutorial as much as I did making it! <3 Happy Valentine’s Day!