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!

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!