how to of the day: softies hearts for Valentine’s day

I thought it would be fun to do a machine-sewn project for Valentine’s day, but didn’t feel like making anything too cutesy.  The solution?  Off-kilter, wobbly hearts!

To start off with you’ll need a selection of fabric (I’m using printed 100% cotton quilting fabric) scissors, thread, fiber-fill and a hand-sewing needle.

Because I don’t want the hearts to look perfect, I just cut them freehand – with no patterns.  The largest heart is approxiamately 5″ across, the smallest is 3″ across at the widest point.  Place the right sides together and pin:

Now sew around the edges, using a straight stitch and a 1/4″ seam allowance (or wider if you’re more comfortable working with that width)  Make sure to leave a minimum one inch gap to turn them right side out!

Use your scissors to snip a small slash in the seam allowance of the top of the heart, in between the two bumps.  Don’t snip all the way into the seam – you don’t want to unravel it

Now turn it inside out and use your scissors (chopsticks also work beautifully) to stuff the heart.  I didn’t stuff it too tightly – it depends on the look you want.

I like to use a baseball stitch to close up stuffed projects like these, but you can use whatever stitch you prefer.

I want to be able to hang the heart softies up after they’re done, so I’m using an embroidery needle & some cotton embroidery floss to make a hanging loop:

In my next post I’ll show you how the hearts turned out