Gumdrops and Kitties

Day #152
Hearts #122-123

Ooh, here we are, just one day away from seeing the whole alphabet in heart form! 

Today's hearts are pretty and happy, and they just add to my excitement at being so close to finishing this particular project.  (Of course, I still have more than half the year left, so there are a lot of hearts still to come!)

"G" is for Gumdrops:

"K" is for Kitty:

This "kitty" heart is probably my favorite one, because I LOVE pink and turquoise together--and kitties!

U and Y

Day #151
Hearts #120-121

I am so proud of myself for getting back to daily posting on this blog!  Besides a lot of other sewing that I have to do (keeping my local booth stocked, Etsy orders, and swap packages), I've had to travel twice in the last 6 weeks, which is very unusual for me.  I am ready to get caught up on these hearts so I finish the year on schedule!

Today's alphabet hearts are perhaps the weirdest of the bunch; they aren't particularly pretty, but they serve the purpose of representing their particular letters.  When they are mixed in with the other letters, though, I think they will be a nice counterpoint to the pretty hearts!  Here they are:

"U" is for underwear!
I really struggled with this letter, and ended up choosing (long) underwear (in the upper right corner).  I wish I had a tiny umbrella print, but alas, I did not!

"Y" is for yolk!
This one is a bit of a stretch; I don't know what the print on this fabric is suposed to be, but to me it looks like slices of hardboiled eggs.  With the "Y" added to it, this heart looks strangely like a face!  One of my readers, Kay, left a comment in a previous post suggesting I use a sunshiny-yellow fabric for the "Y"--I love that idea, but I had already cut out this fabric by the time I read her comment!

Dogs and Jack-o-lanterns

Day #150
Hearts #118-119

As I finish the alphabet hearts, I am posting them here in pairs based more on color than anything (they certainly are NOT IN alphabetical order!)  Just a few more days until I can take a picture of them all together!

"J" is for Jack-o-lantern:

"D" is for Dog:

Notions and Buttons

Day #149
Hearts #116-117

I have two more alphabet hearts to show you today.  They are so similar-looking that I'm glad they will be widely separated in my alphabet garland!

"N" is for Notions:

"B" is for Buttons:

These two hearts (and all of the ones from yesterday, and the ones still to come) have letters made from fabric, fused to the heart with Heat n Bond.  It is quicker than sewing the letters on, and I like the look of the fabric letters.  Most of the previous alphabet hearts have felt letters that I carefully sewed by machine, but this will be a garland, high on the wall, that won't be closely inspected, so I think I can get away with fusing rather than sewing some of the letters!

The Second Half of the Alphabet

Day #148
Hearts #113-115

Ooh, I'm excited to be working on the second half of the alphabet hearts I started way back in January!  Yesterday I chose all the fabrics, cut them out, applied the letters, and sewed the hearts together for the last 13 letters; all that's left is to stuff them and sew them closed. 

I finished three of them last night, and these three have something in common that you can't see:  the pretty fabrics were all given to me by my BCF (Best Crafty Friend) Susan!  She's such an enabler!  Thanks, Susan!

"E" is for Elephants

"I" is for I Love Lucy (I was thrilled to find this in my stash, because I was having trouble with this letter!)

"V" is for Vehicles

W and X

Day #147
Hearts #111-112

I'm still making my way randomly through the alphabet...I hope to finish up all the letters this weekend so I can move on to other things.  After the alphabet garland is done I want to do another garland with all kinds of different hearts--all sizes, shapes, colors and styles.

Today I have two very cute letters:  W and X.

"W" is for watermelon

"X" is for x's and o's

You would think the "x" would be the hardest to find a fabric for, but I had this in my stash.  The two letters that are really giving me trouble are "u" and "y".  I have a wonderful umbrella fabric, but the print is so large it won't work very well, and I am totally stuck on "y".  I will look through my fabrics again, and if all else fails, I will embroider something!

More Heart Keychains

Day #137
Hearts #108-110

As you can see, I've made a few more of these heart keychains.  I made a few changes, because I want them to be good enough to sell.  Today I made up a "kit" with everything in it to make one of these, and brought it with me to an appointment where I knew I might have to wait for a while, and it was easy to do away from home--so I'm going to make up a bunch of kits to have handy when I need something to keep my hands busy! 

My lovely reader Kay commented, on the previous heart keychain, that she would like to try one of these, because it is (mostly) hand sewing.  I love it when I get comments from readers!  I was inspired by her comment to come up with a tutorial for these.  I am working on it now, and I will post it on my other blog, Leslie's Art and Sew, when it is done.  I will even show you how to do it entirely by hand, Kay!

I redesigned it so there is no stitching to bother with on the back.  I also added two layers of interfacing to give it more stiffness.

The hardest part is finding fabric with a small image that looks good when framed like this.  Of course, you could always make a small embroidered or cross-stitched piece to go in the center.

Heart Keychain

Day #131
Heart #107

I saw a cute heart keychain at Toastie Studio this week, and I couldn't rest until I tried one myself.  I changed it by putting a layer of felt over my printed fabric so it is reverse appliqued.  The edges are hand-embroidered.

Front:

Back:

In my hand:

It has imperfections because this was the practice one...I needed to get a feel for how it would go together.  Normally after the first one, I make changes and do a second and third one before I get something I like.  This time, though, I like it just like this!  It seems just the right size and weight and sturdiness to be a functional keychain, so I think I will make a few more, with different fabric centers and different color combinations.

The Alphabet Continues...

Day #125
Hearts #104-106

Three more hearts with letter-appropriate prints:

F is for Frog

S is for Star

T is for Tootsie Roll

I'm really looking forward to having all the letters done and hung up as a garland in my sewing room!