I’ve had some reader requests to explain how to make the “baseball stitch” used in the heart softies tutorial.  It’s an easy & fast stitch for making a flat, almost invisible closure.  It’s great for 3D projects like stuffed animals.
For the sake of clarity, I’m going to be using left & right to designate which side of the fabric I’m working on.  Here’s a step-by-step how-to:

Thread your needle and knot the end.  Bring the needle up from the wrong side of the left piece of fabric.

Now take the needle and bring it over the left side and push it through …read more

I showed you how I made the softies hearts yesterday – would you like to see how they turned out?

They also look really neat with the hanging loops interlocked together, like this:

Of course, now I want to make more and embroider them!  Too many projects, not enough time…

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 …read more