The Heartly Tutorial

Valentines day is not that huge in Australia but there is nothing wring with spreading a little love! Inspired by the amount of Valentines day love floating around the blogosphere at the moment I came up with this cute framed wall hanging that is super easy!

So here you have it the:

The Heartly Tutorial! 

All you will need is your bucket of scrap fabrics, a rotary cutter and mat, a larger scrap of white fabric (I used some white on white patterned quilting cotton), a piece of pellon (a bit bigger than the mat of your frame), some vliesofix, about and hour and a half and a frame to put it in! 

Oh and if you want it to be the same size as mine - you will need the Heartly Template which you can find here.

1. First Grab your bucket of scrap fabrics and choose six  scraps that blend well together.

2.  Cut strips that measure approximately 2.5" x 8" from your 6 fabric scraps. I cut three strips from each fabric. Cut each of these strips in half lengthways so that they measure 2.5" x 4".

3. Sew your strips together - right sides facing - at the short ends.

4. Cut your sewn strips in half along the length of these strips. (In the direction of the arrows). you should end up with at least 12 skinny strips of pieced fabric.

5.  Arrange your strips so that they are staggered - see picture below - and are in an aesthetically pleasing arrangement. Sew together along the long side using a 1/8 " seam allowance. Pressing in between each strip. Don't worry about being too neat.

6.  Take your heart template (you can use the same one I did here - or make up your own size.) and lay it on your pieced fabric.

7. Pin and cut out around this template. Then cut a heart shape of the Vliesofix from the same template. Iron your Vliesofix heart to the back of your pieced heart.

8.  Then Iron your heart shape to the middle of your piece of while (or plain colored) fabric.

9. Machine applique around the outside of your heart shape. My favorite is blanket stitch. Give it all a good press with the iron.

10.  Take the Mat Board from your frame and lay out your appliqued heart fabric like in the picture below. Once you have it nicely centered, use some sticky tape to secure the edges. You may need to trim your white fabric to get a good fit.

11. Take your Pellon and lay it down over the back of your heart fabric. Again - stick the edges down to secure. Place the Mat Board into your frame and secure the back of the frame with the fasteners.

12.  Hang your framed Heartly somewhere that reminds you that there is love in your house everyday!