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!

Another Happy Heart

Day #111
Heart #99

Here's a simple little badge-style heart with a pin back.  It always think of the word "happy" when I think of hearts!

I've always liked hearts and they've been a theme in my life.  I've made a ton of little hearts into pins to wear, but it wasn't until just recently that I realized I could make them in this flat badge-style!  Up until now, they've always been puffy!

This heart is in colors I love; I think I will wear it on my trip this weekend!

Winged Heart #5

Day #109
Heart #98

Here's another in my series of winged hearts.  The wings are blue dupioni silk, and the heart is blue cotton with small, random white dots.  I sewed a clear bead on top of each dot.  It has a pin on the back for wearing.

Winged Heart #4

Day #105
Heart #97

The wings of this are satin, sewn wrong-side-out so it has more texture and less shine. The heart is cotton fabric.

I love the way the beads accent the geometric design; I want to do a few more that are similar to this! This heart has a pin back sewn on.

Approximate size:  3" x 2"

Happy Heart

Day #99
Heart #96

Happy spring, happy Easter, happy heart!

This is a wool felt heart badge.  Approximate size 3 3/4" x 2 1/4".

Winged Heart #2

Day #96
Heart #95

Well, I appear to be one heart behind on my heart-a-day challenge!  I'm not worried though, because today's heart is just the first of at least a dozen (or two) that I plan to work on this week.

My second winged heart:

I'm so very happy with the size and shape of this one; the first one was a little too large to wear, but this is just right.

Here's the first one, and a quarter, for comparison

I plan to try a lot of different fabrics and a few other embellishments on the upcoming hearts.  I can't wait to get started!

One More Heart Badge

Day #91
Heart #94

Here's another felt heart badge, similar to the one I made yesterday.  I currently have badges on the brain, and I need to make a bunch of them and get them out of my system!  Then I promise to return to the winged hearts.

This is made of wool felt and cotton embroidery floss.

Heart Badge

Day #90
Heart #93

I haven't been able to make more of the winged hearts yet, so I will show you something else.  There is a new swap starting on Craftster, dreamed up and organized by the amazing Lime Riot, called the Felt Badge Swap.  All you have to do is click on that link to go to the swap page; at the top of the page you will see a picture of tons of cute and amazing felt badges--and once you see them, you too will fall under the spell of felt badges!  I realized today that I have an unfinished one that I started who-knows-when.  I finished it up, and since it features a big heart, I'm counting it as heart #93!

I had intended to put a pin back on it, but I finished the back without it, because that's how we are doing it in the swap, so your partner can use it however she wants.  When I have a few more, I think I will mount them in a frame or something similar, so the whole collection can be viewed like a piece of art.

There is something so cool about this little 1 3/4"  piece of felty craftiness!  I can see that I will probably want to have a big collection, so I hope there will be many more of these swaps! 

Heart Pins

Day #84
Hearts #87-92

I started these hearts a while ago, and decided today to finish and post them here, so I can have a week free to work on more winged hearts, like the one I showed you yesterday.

These are the heart pins that I sell locally.  (I didn't add the coil-less pins to the back yet, because they photograph better without them--they lay nice and flat!)

I like this turquoise and pink one the best.  I go ga-ga for those colors!!

I'll be back next week with more...

Winged Heart

Day #83
Heart #86

Ahhh, it's so good to be back to this little blog--I have had such a busy March that 365 Sewn Hearts has been rather neglected.  I have finished all but one of my big projects, so today I turned my attention to trying to create a heart that's been on my mind for quite a while:  a winged heart.

I used dupioni silk for the wings, and both the wings and the heart are lightly stuffed with polyfil.  Then I sewed random beads all over the front of the heart; I sewed right through the wings and this is what holds the wings in place.  The heart is nicely flattened from all the beading, which would make it perfect for a brooch, if it wasn't for one thing:  it is somewhat gigantic!  It might work on a winter coat, but not so much on one of my dresses.  But this size might just be AWESOME on the front of one of my zippered purses--!!  Wow, that's a great idea!  I am going to have to try that!

I will be back soon with more of these; I want to make them smaller and I'm sure there will be little refinements I want to make before they are ready to wear, give, or sell.  Here's the back (below); I purposely let the purple stitches show, all higgledy-piggledy; I kind of like it that way, but I may change that too.

Fancy Felt Heart

Day #74
Heart #85

I made one more pincushion heart to test the Fancy Felt I bought from Giant Dwarf on Etsy.  It was suggested to me by Mareth at Lime Riot, who uses this wool and viscose blend felt in all her creations. 

It feels just like 100% wool felt (not slippery or "plastic-y" like acrylic felt); it has a nice body and density, but is a little thinner than the wool felt I usually work with.

I like this product a lot and I'm hoping the lower wool content will discourage little buggies from eating it!

Watermelon Heart

Day #66
Heart #84


Hey, it's almost summer! 
Let's all celebrate by wearing a heart-shaped watermelon pin!

Pincushion Hearts

Day #57
Hearts #62-83

Yesterday I posted my entry in the Random Acts of Crafty Kindness Challenge at Craftster, so now I can show you all the hearts I made for that!  I actually only sent out 17 of these heart-shaped, tie-on pincushions for the challenge, but I finished an additional 5, so I'm adding 22 hearts to my total today!  Yippee! 

Here they are, all together.  I purposely made each one with a different color combination, so I could count each of them as a different heart for this 365 Hearts blog challenge!  (I'm always thinking!)

The picture below shows how I prepared the pincushions for mailing.  You can read more details of my Random Act of Kindness at the link above, or on my other blog (Leslie's Art and Sew).

I hope you have a happy day too!

St. Patrick's Day Heart

Day #55
Heart #61

Oops, I've let 10 days elapse since my last post--and I had planned to post at least once a week!  At least I'm still ahead of the game as far as the number of hearts goes.  I've been busy working on a large group of hearts that I will post here in the next couple of days; today my thoughts turned to St. Patrick's Day, so I made this heart pin that I can wear during the next few weeks.

It didn't turn out as "St. Patrick-y" as I had hoped; the fabric is covered in ribbons and small shamrocks, but when cut down this small, most of those details are lost.

I think I will try again, and see if I can't come up with something that screams "Happy St. Patrick's Day!!"

Valentine's Day Garland

Day #45
Hearts #57-60

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Beaded Wool Felt Hearts

Day #39
Hearts #54-56

Here are a few more heart pins that I sell in a local store.

If the colors look familiar, it's because I posted a set of hearts I made for a special order in these same colors earlier this week.

Here's the thing:  there was a bit of a communication problem, and the customer actually wanted these small wool felt hearts, not the larger fabric heart pins I made for her!

She called me yesterday to say that the pins I had delivered to the store for her were not the right ones, and would I be able to make the felt pins before Valentine's Day?

Of course I said "yes" and went straight to work!  I finished these this morning and took them to the store.

All's well that ends well!

Americana Heart

Day #38
Heart #53

Here's another heart pin that I sell locally in a store called County Treasures.  This old-looking, patriotic color palette fits in very well there and is quite popular.

This is the same heart from a different angle.  The heart is about 3" tall and has a coiless pin on the back.

Special Order Hearts

Day #37
Hearts #46-52

Last week I received a special order that coincides very nicely with my 365 hearts objective!  A customer of the local store where I sell my work wanted some of my heart pins in three particular colors:  purple, olive and teal.  She already has several of these pins in other colors, and she wanted one more for herself and several to give to friends for Valentine's Day. 

These hearts are about 3" tall, and have a coiless pin on the back  After tying the ribbon in a bow, I put a dab of glue underneith to keep it from coming undone while being worn.  Here's what I made:

Purple

Olive

Teal

This one is my favorite, because I love purple, and this Japanese fabric is especially lovely.  All the other hearts were made with a combination of fabrics on the front, but this one is a single fabric.

My customer only needs two purple, one teal and one olive, but I made extras so she would have a little bit of a choice.