A heart-shaped gift doesn’t have to be for Valentine’s Day, it’s a universal symbol of love and care making these gorgeous ornaments suitable for all sorts of occasions – from showing friends you’re thinking of them to making someone smile.
Free patchwork project: Love Heart Tokens
Finished size approximately 11 cm x 11 cm.
You will need (for each heart):
- Scraps of cotton fabric, plain or printed Tip: Use up leftover scraps from other projects. A piece of fabric at least 15cm square is needed for the backing of this ornament, but smaller pieces can be joined together for the front of each heart.
- Thin card, approximately 15cm square
- Short lengths of ribbon and braid, approximately 6-14cm long, to cover the patchwork joins
- Narrow ribbon, at least 20cm long
- Small button
- Toy stuffing
- Fabric marker
- Dressmaking scissors
- Sewing needle, or sewing machine
- Sewing thread to match fabric
- Iron and ironing board
- Pins
- Corner and edge shaper
How to work this free patchwork project:
1. Join two or more pieces of fabric to create a piece at least 15cm square. Press the seams open.
Make a 15 cm square
2. Trace or copy the heart shape from below on to card and cut it out to make a template. It should measure around 13cm across at the widest point and the template can be enlarged or reduced to make it this size. It should comfortably fit on to your patchwork square. Place the template on the wrong side of the fabric and draw around it using a fabric marker.
Heart template
3. Place the joined fabric on top of a larger scrap of fabric that you wish to use to back your patchwork heart (we’ve used pale pink fabric here). With right sides together, pin the layers together and cut out along the drawn lines.
4. Unpin hearts. Choose lengths of ribbon or braid to fit across the width of the patchwork heart fabric and pin them in place over the patchwork seams, then slip stitch along the edges to attach them.
5. Place the patchwork heart and the plain heart with right sides together. Pin and stitch all round, by hand or machine, leaving a gap of approximately 4cm on one of the straighter edges for turning.
6. Snip into the seam allowance on the curved edges of the fabric and cut off the bottom corner.
7. Turn the heart right sides out and press, then stuff firmly with toy stuffing, using a corner and edge shaper or similar tool to push the stuffing into all the nooks and crannies.
8. On the opening, tuck the seam allowance inside and slip stitch the folded edges together, to close the gap.
9. Stitch the two ends of a 20cm length of ribbon to the centre top of the heart to create a loop. Then sew a button on top, to hide the ends.
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