A Stripe With a Secret: Leaves and a Heart Blossom
Stripes are the hardest-working prints in a quilt shop, and this one has a surprise tucked into it. Love You Always Plants Mist Cotton is a 100% cotton quilting fabric, 43"/44" wide and sold by the yard, designed by Sandy Gervais for Riley Blake Designs. Part of the Love You Always collection, it is a striped print featuring sprigs of leaves with a heart blossom — so what reads as a tidy, orderly stripe from across the room turns into a small botanical story up close. Riley Blake Designs describes the collection as great for quilting, apparel and home decor, and this print earns all three: the stripe gives it structure, while the leaves and heart blossom give it the heartfelt character the collection is named for.
The Mist colorway keeps that story soft, with a pale, calm ground that lets the leafy sprigs carry the design without shouting — easy to live with in a full border, a backing, or the main fabric of a gift quilt.
What This Fabric Is Best For
Use a striped botanical like this wherever you want built-in movement. The repeating stripe leads the eye along the quilt, so it is a natural choice for borders that frame a quieter center, for sashing that separates blocks with a sense of direction, and for bindings cut to show a sliver of the pattern at the edge. It also makes a lovely backing for a small quilt, where the stripes and sprigs can stretch uninterrupted.
Beyond quilts, it suits apparel and home decor too: a gathered skirt, pillow shams, a lengthwise table runner, or café curtains — anywhere a plain fabric would feel flat.
Cutting and Piecing a Striped Print
Decide on direction before you cut. Stripes look intentional when they all run the same way, and playful when you deliberately turn them. Pick one plan per project area — all stripes running lengthwise in a border, for example — and cut every piece to match before you start sewing.
Cut borders along the stripe. For long border strips, cut parallel to the stripe so the pattern runs unbroken down the length of the quilt. Join shorter lengths end to end only where a seam will be least visible, and align the stripe across the join so the rhythm continues.
Turn the stripe for effect. In pieced blocks, try alternating the stripe direction — vertical in one block, horizontal in the next — for a woven, checkerboard energy. Just be consistent inside each block, and press seams neatly with a standard quarter-inch seam allowance so the stripes meet cleanly at block corners.
Watch the heart blossom in small cuts. In narrow strips and small squares the leaves will show, but the little heart blossom can be clipped by a seam. When a piece is meant to feature the motif, take a moment to position your cut so a blossom lands inside the finished unit.
Color Pairing and Project Ideas
Mist is a gentle, low-contrast ground, so this print pairs calmly with the other Love You Always fabrics, its stripe resting between busier florals. It also works as the quiet constant in a scrappy quilt — the same striped sashing in every block pulls varied colors together — and beside deeper, saturated prints it gives the eye a place to breathe while still contributing pattern.
Five easy ways to use it: as lengthwise borders framing a panel or group of blocks; as sashing with the stripe running one consistent direction; cut on the cross for a striped binding with botanical detail; as a whole-width backing for a baby or lap quilt; or as a table runner where the sprigs run the full length of the table.
Care
Follow the care given for this fabric: machine wash cold and tumble dry low. If you prewash yardage, wash it the same way you plan to wash the finished quilt so everything behaves evenly. Press as you piece, and store finished quilts out of direct sunlight to keep the soft Mist ground looking fresh.
Shop the Love You Always Plants Mist Cotton 43"/44" Fabric Per Yard at Linda's Electric Quilters.
