I am still on my heart project kick! I’ve just been enjoying making heart things so much and they have all been very well received. Several of the kids in my boys’ classes said the Happy Heart Ornament they got for Valentine’s Day was their favorite and both of my boys heat up their heart rice bag to snuggle by their feet every single night. So fun! So today I have a cute little heart pincushion for you to make! The best part of this project is I used a couple of my precious, most favoritest fabrics that I have a hard time cutting in to. But, I made these heart pincushions and I use them every day now with all of the embroidery I have been doing and also just around the studio. I love that I get to use something made from my most loved fabrics so that I can enjoy them every day! If you scroll to the end of the post I made some heart pattern weights as well. Let’s get making!
DOWNLOAD THE HAPPY HEART PINCUSHION PATTERN HERE
You Will Need
- Fabric pieces, (2) that are at least 6″ wide by 5″ tall
- Scissors (I used these for large cutting* and these for trimming my thread* for this tutorial)
- Fabric marking pen or pencil (Frixion are my favorite*)
- Hand sewing needles (Anything like this works*)
- Matching thread
- Pincushion filling (I used this one with the lavender*, they have it unscented* as well)
Optional Supplies (Not necessary, but handy if you have them)
- Pins (These are what I used*)
- Chopstick for turning
- Funnel
- Measuring cups
1. Download the pattern printable and cut out the heart. Use your marking pencil or pen to trace the heart onto your fabric. Make sure to mark the two sides of the “Leave Open” section so you know where to start and stop sewing. Carefully cut out the heart. Look at how cute the selvedge is on this precious Heather Ross strawberry fabric!!!! No wonder I haven’t wanted to cut it up, it is adorable as is!!
2. With the right sides of the fabric facing, and using a ¼” seam allowance, sew the two sides of the heart together. Be sure to start sewing on one side of the “Leave Open” section and stop sewing on the other side of the “Leave Open” section.
When sewing the curves of the heart go slowly and just sew a few stitches, lift your presser foot to adjust to the curve, and then sew a few more stitches until you get around both curves. These curves are pretty gentle so you may not need to do too much lifting of your foot, but just be mindful as you sew the curves.
3. Once you have sewn the two sides together, use your scissors to trim right up to the seam (but not through it) in the dip on the top of the heart. I end up removing most of the seam allowance here to make the point lay flat once turned. Snip a few more spots around both of the curves to help the seam lay flat once turned. Trim the seam allowance off from the bottom point of the heart as well to help it be pointy once turned. Again, trim to the seam but not through it!
4. Turn the heart right side out. I use a chopstick to help in turning and then I run the point of the chopstick along all the seams of the heart to help shape the heart once turned.
5. Turn the “Leave Open” section 1/4″ in and use your fingers to press the seam. You can also use an iron or a seam roller*, but I find finger pressing generally does the trick.
6. It is time to fill your heart! If you have a funnel use it, but I didn’t. No worries, grab a piece of scrap paper and you can curl it into a funnel. Double check the tip of the funnel fits into your open section and then you can put a piece of tape on the paper to hold it in place. Or, if you are like me and couldn’t find your tape, a couple staples will also do the trick.
This is a 1/3 cup measure (all my other ones were dirty). You can get an idea of about how much filling to use from my photos, as you can see in this photo I filled it pretty full.
7. Add your pincushion filling to one side of the heart. Once I had added this initial filling, I measured more out for the other side of the heart. You can see from the photo this time it was about half of my 1/3 cup measure.
8. Add this filling to the other side of the heart. Add any more bits you feel like it needs, at this point I propped the heart in my measuring cup and just poured a little bit more from the bag. I like to fill the hearts pretty full (more than with the rice hearts), but just be careful not to get it so full the filling goes all over the place as you sew your pincushion closed.
9. I closed my pincushion with a pin before starting to sew it shut. You can skip this step, but I recommend it.
10. Use a matching thread and a ladder stitch (or your preferred method) to close the seam. I keep my stitches very close together since the nutshell filling is very small.
11. Once you have closed the opening, tie your thread in a knot and put your needle through the seam to hide the end of the thread on the inside of the heart. Pull the needle and thread out from side of the heart.
12. Pull the thread taut and use your scissors to trim it flush with the fabric.
Finished heart pincushion already in use!
I made this adorable ladybug one too from some fabric I got in my first Fabric Bubb order.
I decided to make some little heart pattern weight as well. I have had these* in my amazon cart forever but have not been willing to spend $35 on them. So, since I had some leftover squares from a charm pack* and the leftover pincushion filling, so I decided to make some of my own pattern weights! I followed these same directions but for the pattern I used the original Happy Heart Ornament pattern to make a more useful sized weight. The ones in my shopping cart look a lot smaller still though. You could totally shrink the pattern a bit and make even smaller pattern weights if you were so inclined. I may in the future, but I think this will work for now, since I have been sewing for about 32 years at this point and have not had any pattern weights thus far.
That’s it! I hope that you turn some of your most loved fabrics into a very practical item you will use all the time like me. Make sure and use the hashtags #happyheartpincushion and #binthestudio when you share your photos so I can find you.
Happy Making-
*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.
