How To: Embroidered Heart Hoop

Time for one last heart-themed tutorial before Valentine's Day rolls round next week...

Today's project is a simple embroidery pattern (based on my felt heart brooch design from a couple of years ago) you can personalise with initials. Stitch it as a Valentine's or anniversary gift for the one you love, or as a wedding present for a special couple.

I've framed my heart inside one of the mini 3inch embroidery hoops (available from my shops) and I'll be adding a loop of red ribbon to the top so it can be hung as an ornament - it's actually going to be a house-warming gift for a couple who hopefully don't read my blog! But you can, of course, stitch your heart onto anything you fancy.

To make the embroidered felt hoop pictured...

1) Print the heart pattern at the bottom of this post, and draw on the initials you want. Then trace the pattern onto greaseproof/baking paper with a marker pen.

2) Stretch your felt in an embroidery hoop (I used a 5inch hoop for this step). Pin the baking paper in position in the centre of the hoop, tack it in place with long stitches and remove the pins.

3) Stitch the design. I used backstitch and half the number of strands in stranded white embroidery thread / floss.

4) Remove the tacking stitches and carefully tear away the paper from the stitched design, using a pin to remove any small or fiddly pieces. Then remove the felt from the hoop.

5) Carefully position the felt in a smaller (3inch) embroidery hoop, ensuring you get the heart as central as possible, then tighten the hoop

6) Trim the excess felt from around the edge of the hoop, leaving some to fold over in the next step.

7) Gradually fold and glue the felt into the back of the hoop. For extra neatness, cut out a circle the same size as the inner hoop and glue this to the back to hide your workings.

8) Place a small, clean jar inside the hoop to hold everything in place while the glue dries...

... and you're done!

Click here to view the pattern in another window/tab, and print it at 100%.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to embroider as many hearts as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow a few photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my entire tutorial on your site. Thanks!

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Nostalgia + Lots of Craft Supplies

While sorting through a box of bits and bobs this week, I found this mini notebook. The panda's eyes flick from being blue to having big red hearts in them. Cute, huh?

When I was very small and obsessed with sewing clothes for Barbies or Flower Fairies or Sylvanian Families, I used to write notes for my sewing projects in here...

... but spelling was never my strong point! :)

In other news, I've added a few "new" listings over in my Etsy shop - larger quantities of some popular items in my supplies section.

You can now buy a set of 24 mini 3inch embroidery hoops...

... a bumper button-making kit with 60 cover buttons instead of the 20 included in the basic starter kit...

.... a huge bundle of 144 skeins of embroidery thread / floss (4 skeins of each of the 36 rainbow colours)...

... and a set of 4 giant wooden buttons:

Oh, and just a heads up for all you felt fans, there's just one pack each left of the "warm tones" and "cool tones" felt bundles as I'm discontinuing them to make room for a couple of new packs later this spring. 

Sketches, Poppies and a Blanket Update

This week I've been doing a lot of sketching of new ideas, and planning of new projects. Unfortunately this means I've mostly been working on things I can't show you...  so here's a photo of some newly sharpened pencils instead :)

In the evenings I've been sewing lots of poppies, but that's temporarily been put on hold as I've run out of black thread! Oops. 

One of my "big" tasks for this year is to take new photos for all my current designs, and get all my shops looking their best with snazzy new pics. I'm still not brilliant at taking photos, but I've definitely improved over the years and some of the older listings definitely need a bit of a revamp. Plus there were all those days when I took a "temporary" photo to get something listed quickly and never got around to going back and taking a fancier one (tsk tsk). 

I'm hoping to have a few big photo-taking sessions later in the year, but in the meantime I'll be snapping a few pics here and there on sunny days and updating my shop listings when I can. I just got the first listing updated today - the large red poppy brooch.

Oh, and I started sewing my sky blanket together! Yay! 

I'm sewing the squares in date order from left to right along each row (like a calender). The long strip is a little tricky to photograph, but this photo should give you an idea of what the blanket is going to look like:

It's very exciting to see how the patchwork squares look sewn together, and to start to get an idea of how the finished blanket will look.... and, of course, it will be so much easier sewing the squares together / sewing in all the ends bit by bit instead of having to do it all in one go at the end of the year. 

Plus, though I've always loved the idea of knitting this blanket I have to admit that I was a little bit worried about ending up with a very strange looking object at the end of it, but I think all those mottled blues and greys look rather lovely together. 

UPDATE: My poppy design is now available as a sewing pattern! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns

How To: Cross Stitch Heart Brooch

As promised, here's another Valentine-themed project :)

Today's tutorial is for a cute felt heart brooch decorated with little cross stitches.

These brooches are quite a quick sewing project, and would make sweet Valentine's day gifts for friends (especially ones who like to sew!), or favours for your bridesmaids or flowergirls... or a cute way to say "I love you" to your mum on Mother's day (my mum has already snaffled this one to wear on her jacket).

To make your heart brooch you will need...

White felt and red felt (I used the "ruby red" wool blend felt I sell in my shops)
Matching red and white sewing thread
Red embroidery thread / floss
A brooch clasp (or a safety pin and an extra small rectangle of red felt)
An embroidery hoop
Optional: a piece of greaseproof/baking paper

1) Stretch a piece of white felt in an embroidery hoop to give you a nice flat surface to stitch onto.

2) Use red embroidery thread / floss to stitch the simple design of Xs as pictured. I stitched mine freehand, making small neat crosses and stitching row by row to keep the design as even as possible. The smaller/larger your Xs, the smaller/larger your finished brooch will be. I used the large heart motif from my Will & Kate sampler, but for a different look you could stitch the smaller heart if you prefer.

If you're not confident about stitching freehand, you can draw the heart design neatly onto a piece of semi-transparent baking/greaseproof paper, tack the paper in place on the white felt with large stitches, then follow your drawing as you stitch (stitching through the paper and the felt). When you've finished stitching, remove the tacking threads then carefully tear away the paper, using a pin to remove any small or fiddly pieces.

Make sure that all your Xs are sewn the same way - e.g. on my brooch, the top stitch of each X is the line going from the top left to the bottom right. 

3) Remove the white felt from the hoop, then cut around your stitched heart leaving a border of white felt around the Xs:

4) Place the white heart onto a piece of red felt, and sew it in position using running stitch and white thread. Then trim away the excess red felt to create a red border around the white heart.

5) Use the red heart as a template to cut another matching piece of red felt - this will be the back of your brooch. Turn the backing piece over and sew a brooch clasp or safety pin onto it (or a hairclip if you prefer) using a double thickness of red sewing thread. Visit this tutorial on making felt brooches for tips on how to secure your safety pin neatly.

6) Place the front and back of the brooch together, and sew around the edge with running stitch in more red thread. Sew as flush to the white heart as you can, and then finish your stitching neatly at the back.

I stitched my brooch in "classic" red and white, but I think it would also look very cute in pretty shades of pink and purple, or with a bright colour (maybe turquoise?) instead of the white felt.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only: you can use it to make as many brooches as you like to give as gifts, but please don't make any for sale. You may borrow 1 or 2 photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my tutorial on your site. Thanks!

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Visit my shop to buy my printable PDF sewing patterns: