I’m back again with another version of the Happy Heart Ornaments I have been sharing this week! Pinterest has been showing me a bunch of Sashiko and Boro projects recently and I thought it would be a fun to do a little experiment with that kind of style for the heart ornaments! I know I am not alone in hoarding little teeny tiny scraps of my favorite fabrics from over the years, including bits that are really too small to be useful. That little gnome on the bottom right ornament was the inspiration for this version! I found it while I have been playing in my scraps with all of the other ornaments I have been making. It is much too small to be useful, but too precious to throw out.
I understand that this version is not actually Sashiko or Boro since it is not hand stitched. But you could certainly do that too! I just love the Wabi-Sabi style of these, especially since sewing with raw edges is not something I normally enjoy and this pushes me outside of my crafty comfort zone.
Just like with yesterday’s tutorial, I will show you how to do the basic sides and you can click back to the original tutorial for finishing instructions. Let’s get started, shall we?
DOWNLOAD THE HAPPY HEART ORNAMENT PATTERN HERE
For This Tutorial You Will Need
- Your tiniest fabric scraps: I used pinks, reds, and whites. Look for little ones that are not even big enough to have a seam allowance.
- Muslin or white fabric scraps for fabric foundation: at least 4.5″ wide by 3.5″ tall
- Pins (I used these because I like how thin they are.*)
- Sewing Machine
- All purpose thread (I use this*)
- Scissors (These are the ones I use in this tutorial*)
- Fabric marking pen or pencil (I use Frixion*)
To Finish Your Ornament You Will Need (See my previous tutorial for more info)
- Chopstick for turning (optional)
- Scrap yarn or embroidery floss for hanger
- Sharp tapestry needle (For adding yarn hanger. Something like this.*)
- Trace the heart pattern onto your foundation fabric. I had some Kona muslin that I had picked up 10 yards of when I saw it on a super sale, but you can use whatever you have. I think it is best if you use a white or cream so that it does not show through any of the fabrics on top, but this will get covered in fabrics so you won’t end up seeing it once the ornament is finished.
2. Cut out your fabric foundation hearts.
3. Gather all of your tiny fabric scraps and start placing them on your foundation pieces! I like to spread them all around where I am working so the next piece can catch my eye easily. I put batting under the foundation pieces so I could easily move them over to my sewing machine once I was ready to sew.
4. Let your fabrics speak to you and place them around on your foundation piece in a way that is pleasing to you. I tend to start with the center, although then I end up moving it a lot since that piece tends to be the top piece. Stack the bits so they overlap somewhat, but you definitely don’t need a full 1/4″ like with traditional piecing. You might have some pieces that already work and you can just lay on the foundation fabric, you can see a few of the ones I had in this photo. I also trimmed edges off other pieces like this heart fabric one to make them work.
5. Keep working with your fabrics to cover the foundation fabric. I like to do both sides at once on this heart ornament version. You will want some pieces to hang over the edges as you can see in my photo, you will trim the heart once finished and you don’t want the foundation fabric to show through anywhere (if you can help it).
6. This is how my ornaments looked when I was all finished!
7. Ok, I am sure you see this is a different ornament. Umm, yeah. For whatever reason I decided you don’t need to pin the tiny fabric bits down before sewing them when I originally took the photos for this tutorial. That was a bad idea. You will see in the following photos that my fabrics totally kept falling off of the foundation and I kept having to place them back on. It was a pain in the behind. Learn from my mistake and definitely do carefully pin the fabrics down before moving on to the next step. I don’t know what I was thinking the first time. I was kind of grumpy so I think that clouded my judgment. I used these Magic Pins* because I love how slim the pokey part is and I have never had them leave holes in the fabric. Not like “holes”, but you know what I mean. I tend to use them when I am pinning layers together to cut at the same time because of how thin they are.
8. Start stitching your fabrics down! I just run an as straight as possible line down the middle to start, and then just use the 1/4″ foot on my machine to stitch a bunch of lines about 1/4″/pretty close together. I am realizing as I type you could totally use a walking foot here, but I was too lazy to switch to mine and it worked fine. Just watch you pieces as you go and adjust any that the foot pushes around. You could also use the pins to hold the fabric in place and then do hand stitching with embroidery floss or Perle cotton like in Sashiko and Boro.
9. Keep stitching lines 1/4″ apart. Or whatever width you want. Just close enough it will lock down the little fabric pieces and help them fray as little as possible. You could also run a long length basting stitch that you could go back and pull out and then hand stitch this instead. Get creative!
10. Here is mine with all the stitching done on half the ornament. (See those pieces that fell off and I had to put back on? Use those pins!!)
11. Turn the ornament the other way and sew all of the 1/4″ lines to the other side of the center line.
12. Finished sides!
13. This is what they look like on the back.
14. Working with the back facing you use the foundation heart to cut the ornament out.
15. Finished heart sides! Now it is time to finish sewing your ornament, you can check out the original tutorial for more instructions. I did do a couple things differently on this version. For one I really ran the tip of my chopstick around all the inside seams to make sure it was turned all the way.
17. Also, after trimming the heart and turning it I pressed these flat (I also used glass head pins to turn under the opening. The glass pins are great if you are pressing since if the iron bumps them it won’t melt the pins like with plastic ones.). I felt like the ornaments were stiff enough from all the stitching and fabric bits plus foundation fabric that I didn’t want to even try and stuff these.
18. Instead I topstitched around the edge to help them lay flat. This also meant I didn’t have to close the leave open section by hand since I closed it when topstitching. Otherwise I finished them the same as the original tutorial with the yarn hangers.
Finished ornaments! These are the backs of the ones in the first photo. This is not normally my style, but after finishing them I really love these sooo much! All those little precious scraps that I can’t bring myself to throw out are now adorable ornaments I will treasure when I pull them out for Valentine’s Day each year.
There you go! Four different ways to make some cutie hearts for Valentine’s Day! Or whenever really, I love hearts all year round. I hope that these tutorials have helped to spark your creativity. Please share with me what you make! If you add the hashtag #B’sHappyHeartOrnament on social media I will be able to find you.
Here are all of the links from this series:
Tutorial #1: The Happy Heart Ornament
Tutorial #2: The Patchwork Happy Heart Ornament
Tutorial #3: The Improv Pieced Happy Heart Ornament
Happy Sewing-
*Links marked with * are affiliate links that I may earn a small commission from at no cost to you in order to help me keep my blog and free tutorials like this one going.
Pingback: Improv Pieced Happy Heart Ornament Tutorial - B In The Studio
Pingback: Patchwork Happy Heart Ornament Tutorial - B In The Studio