Note: This project first appeared on the October Afternoon blog on February 15.
These are the instructions to make that project.
So I don't know if you've seen it, but on Facebook there has
been a crafty "pay it forward" going around. The idea is that someone
posts on their wall that they will make 5 crafty things for 5 people sometime
during 2013. In turn those 5 people promise to re-post the same offer on their
wall and do the same for 5 other people.
I did it last year and found it really fun, so I thought I'd do it again
this year.
I've been trying to think up fun, crafty surprises that are
perfect for those who signed up on my wall and then it dawned on me: I have a friend who loves hearts... and it's
February which is all about love and hearts... she's recently become obsessed
with quilting... and of course everyone could use a little October Afternoon in
their life, so I came up with the idea to make a quilted heart home decor piece
for her using one of the Farm Girl Papers. She happens to be a "clean and
simple" kind of girl too so I just used a single pattern, but I think this
could be fabulous if you used a mix of different patterned papers too.
Here's a list of the supplies that I used: Floral patterned paper
from the 8x8 Farm Girl Paper Pad; Thread - Coats n Clark; Embroidery floss -
DMB; Heart digital die-cutting file - my own design; Digital cutter -
Silhouette; Font - KG Makes You Stronger; Linen fabric & 10 x 10 shadow box
frame- Joanns; Glue - EK Success
Steps:
1.
Creating the linen background
a.
Cut a piece of heavyweight cardstock to 10"
x 10."
b.
Put a strong runner adhesive around the edges of
the cardstock. (From personal experience, I would recommend the Xyron Tape
Runner, the Kokuyo Dot n' Roller, or the Thermoweb Memory Tape Runner XL.)
c.
Place the cardstock adhesive side down onto a
piece of linen fabric that has been ironed so that it's smooth. Press so the
adhesive bonds to the fabric. (Take care to keep the adhesive away from the
areas where there will be stitching.)
d.
Trim the linen fabric about 1/2 - 3/4 inches
around the perimeter of the cardstock.
e.
Apply another strip of strong runner adhesive
along the edge of the cardstock and fold the linen to wrap it around the back.
Once you have it laid down and held with the runner adhesive, put a strip of
tape (clear tape, document tape, strong washi tape, whatever) to cover the
edge. Repeat this for the remaining 3 sides.
2.
Cutting the heart pieces
a.
Open the heart cutting file and place in the
upper corner of the cutting mat. Size to 7.095" wide x 6.510 tall. I choose to cut from the 8x8 paper pad
piece instead of a full size sheet because I liked the smaller scale of the
pattern for this project, but that means that you'll have to be careful about
where you place the cutting image on the cutting mat because you only have a
1/2 inch margin on the left and right sides.
b.
Once you've got the heart shaped cutting image
in the right spot, cut it out. Once you're done cutting, be careful to remove
ONLY the 8"x 8" piece and make sure not to rip or tear it as you
remove it from the cutting mat. This is going to be your template for laying
out the heart pieces onto the linen background.
c.
Do not remove the square pieces from the cutting
mat yet!
3.
Putting the heart on the linen background
a.
Put a few little spots of runner adhesive on the
back of the 8"x8" piece, center it from left to right and place it
about 2" from the top, then lightly
tack it to the linen background.
b.
Bring your cutting mat (with the heart shape
pieces still on it) to your work area. Beginning lightly affixing each square
to the canvas background by adding a little bit of adhesive just to the center
of each piece. (Try to avoid the edges where we'll be stitching later.) I used
an EK Success glue pen, but you could probably use runner adhesive here too. As
you place the pieces, try to keep the pieces from overlapping the template.
This will make it easier to remove the template in the next step.
c.
Once you've affixed all of the pieces, carefully
lift up and remove the template that you used to place the pieces. Be careful
no to flick off the little pieces. I found that it worked best to start along
the straight edge where you began gluing and then work across to the pieces
glued last.
4.
Adding texture with a little stitching
a.
To give the heart a little texture, without
disrupting the visual lines of grid pattern, top stitch in yellow over the
individual squares. In mine I tried to stitch about 1/8" from the edge,
but I'm not the best seamstress so I wasn't completely perfect about that...
plus I wanted to have a little imperfect stitching to give it a homespun feel.
b.
Once you've stitched it going both directions,
stitch an outline around the heart in yellow as well.
5.
Creating a place to "ground" the eye
a.
The open edges of the heart allow the eye to
wander away from the focal point. To draw the eye in and visually tie the heart
and the words together, stitch around the outside of the heart twice. The more
that you allow the lines to intersect, the more visual interest you will add.
6.
Stitching the text
a.
To stitch the words "know you are
loved," I first printed it out on paper, then cut it out with scissors and
used the glue pen to temporarily adhere it to the linen background.
b.
First I went along the words and poked holes for
where the stitches would go. Then, for the actual stitching, I used 3 strands
of embroidery floss and what I think would be called a backstitch (?) to
embroider the letters.
c.
After I finished stitching the words, I put
document tape over the back to keep it from snagging and to hold the stitching.
d.
To finish off the words, gently tear away the
paper that you used as a stitching guide. I found it helpful to use tweezers to
work the paper out of the centers of letters.
7.
Completing the project
a.
Once you've finished the steps above, pop it
into the shadow box frame and you are done!
