Hanging Heart and Packaging - Part 1

Hi there. I hope you're enjoying your weekend. I thought I'd blog my heart today as I'm in a sewing mood; I had a lovely day yesterday making Maya some new camouflage quilt covers and this morning I spent some time in my craft room trying to make it more sewing friendly.

I wanted to show that the new Claritystamp Personalised stamps aren't just for card makers (and I wanted to play with my new sewing machine) so this is what I came up with.

The heart is for hanging on cupboard doors etc. and I made the packaging to match it, as if it was to be sold at a craft fair. I think I'll blog the heart today and the packaging next time or I'll end up with another mammoth post!

I'll start off by saying that I haven't sewn for a long time and I never was an expert, so don't look too closely at the sewing - especially on the appliqué!

I cut myself a heart template out of card using my Silhouette Cameo but after a practise run with some old fabric I found out that it's not that easy to follow the curve around the heart..........

..............so I cut out a second template. I made one the size I wanted the heart and another with a 6mm seam allowance. I used a disappearing pen to trace the shape onto the fabric, giving me a line to follow with the machine.

There were several firsts for me in making this heart. The front of it contains two of them - a yo-yo and a fabric covered button.

You have to cut out a circle of fabric in a specific size to cover the buttons. The template is on the packaging but I thought it would be so much easier to just cut one with my Cameo. I drew around a saucer (it's about 12.5cm) for the circle to make the yo-yo; I won't go into detail about that as there's loads of fab tutorials online.

I must have a go at cutting fabric on the Cameo when I have some time. I do like it when things have more than one use and it's nice to be able to use it for sewing as well as paper crafting.

The back contains another first - appliqué! I stamped my personalised stamp on the beige fabric with VersaCraft ink, this is a thick, sticky ink that is perfect for fabric. Once stamped you place a cloth over it, set your iron to "cotton" and press for at least 15 seconds to set it (it can even be washed after that).

When I'd done that I used some Heat n Bond Lite to stick it to the heart, ready to sew around. This is where it went a bit wrong! I used the blanket stitch on my machine and managed to get the sides nice and neat but the corners are a bit dodgy! I'm guessing that you need to alter the length of the stitch to turn them properly. If anyone has any tips for this they would be very much appreciated.

Then it's just a case of stitching them both together. One major thing I learnt here is not to stitch to a point on the top bit of the heart. When you get to the bottom of the point sew across one stitch before you go back up again. I ended up doing a couple of stitches as the hanging ribbon was there too. If you don't do this it gets all bunched up when you turn it the right side out.

All I needed to do then is stuff it and hand sew the opening closed. That reminds me of another minor error - I got so engrossed in the sewing the first time I went all the way around forgetting to leave the opening for turning..!

I'll be back soon to blog the packaging. Before I go I'll leave you a photo of Maya and her new quilt.

I don't think she's realised that she's meant to lie on it!

Stamp Used

Personalised Stamp Set

Lynne
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