how-to of the day: embroidered felt sweethearts

Sorry for the delay in getting this published   Here’s how I made sweethearts out of felt – not candy!

I asked you to get some candy-colored felt, along with a heart-shaped cookie cutter (or other heart-shaped template) in my last post.

Use the cookie cutter as a template and trace around it – using a water-soluble fabric marker.

Cut out more hearts (you don’t have to – but they look so charming as a grouping)

Using a water-soluble fabric marker (non permanent) write out different Valentine’s day sayings.  It’s going to be easier to embroider if you go with something short.

Place the heart cut-outs onto tear-away stabilizer or heavy weight interfacing.  This makes it much easier to free-motion embroider.  Drop the feed dogs on your sewing machine and switch to a darning or free-motion foot.  You can also hand-embroider if you prefer.  I used plain, red sewing machine thread – I want the felt sweethearts to look like the candy ones.

Here’s how the hearts turned out after I trimmed the backing, snipped off the loose threads and used a damp cloth to remove the marker.

I’ll show you how to finish them tomorrow