The End! (of the alphabet)

Day #153
Hearts #124-125

The last two letters of the alphabet hearts are finally done!  And they just happen to be my initials!

"L" is for Leaves and Ladybugs (and Leslie!):

I started this group of hearts with the letter "Z", so it's appropriate that I end with the letter "A"!

"A" is for Alphabet (and Andersen!):

And...since it's taken me so long to get the the end that you have probably forgotten what the first ones looked like, here they are, all 26 letters together:

I haven't strung them on a garland yet, but when I do I will post it on my other blog, Leslie's Art and Sew.  I will probably add a lot of random hearts to the garland, too; hopefully it will look fun and eclectic!

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!

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!

Three More Letters

Day #121
Hearts #101-103

This is a quick look at three more of the alphabet letter hearts; I'm doing the letters in random order.  When I have the whole alphabet completed I will show you a group shot.  Here are my newest hearts:

C is for Candy Corn

M is for Mittens (the mittens are somewhat obscured by the M; I will have to take that into consideration as I choose fabrics in the future)

R is for Ring (I like this one the best!)

100th Heart!

Day #120
Heart #100

Wow, I've made 100 hearts!  But I am falling behind a bit, which I don't like at all...so I am going to try to catch up in the next few weeks.  First, I will finish up the series of alphabet hearts I started in January; after that, who knows?

Today I finished the letter "O".  I love that the owl is framed by the letter!

I have another half-dozen letter hearts started, but this is the cutest one, so I finished this one first!

I've decided that when the whole alphabet is done, I will run a cord along the top of the wall in my sewing room and hang them up there where I can enjoy them every day.  I also intend to do a group shot of all the alphabet hearts together when they are done.  I can't wait for that!

Beginning at the End

Day #10
Hearts #10 and #11

I've begun a series of alphabet hearts, and I started with the letter "Z", simply because I saw this great, graphic zebra fabric on the shelf in my sewing room and I knew it was perfect for what I had in mind.

This is a very simple heart.  After fusing some Heat n Bond to a scrap of black fabric, I just cut out the letter Z on my Sizzix, and ironed it onto the heart I had cut out of the zebra fabric.  I added the ribbon loop so I can hang it eventually; I will either use these alphabet hearts to spell out messages on a garland, or maybe just string them in alphabetical order and show them off that way.

This next heart came about in the same random way; I love this pig fabric that Susan sent me (you can see all the fabrics she sent HERE) and I didn't want to forget about it when I got around to the letter "P", so I used it early!  This heart is made simply, like the Z, but I am not happy with this one...the right-hand side has a wonky shape, and the ribbon loop is really crooked...but I know the value of learning from my mistakes, so rather than discard this one, I'm keeping it to look at as I make the rest of the alphabet.

I plan to make extras of most of the letters so I can spell things like "welcome" or "happy birthday", so I will make a better P, sometime in the next month or two!