{from my heart to yours: a tutorial}

Thanks so much to all of you who shared kind words, compassion, and your own stories with me last week. I don't think my inbox has ever been so full of strength and community. Thank you. Welcome, too, to new readers stopping by from CraftGossip and Ladies in Waiting -- it's been a pleasure connecting with you all.

We love to look out of the window, see the bright hearts, and be reminded of Mormor. I like to imagine her looking down from her cloud, scanning Texas, and the hearts catching her eye and showing her where to find us. As the little hearts we hung on our tree seemed to resonate with so many people, I'm going to show you, quickly, how to make them. 

Materials: 

a scrap of fabric, approximately 10" square

stuffing

needle and thread

paper

6" piece of ribbon

sewing machine (optional)

Begin by drawing a heart template on to paper. I find that I usually draw too small, and almost always go around the original adding a 1/4" extra. Cut out your template, and use it to cut two hearts out of your chosen fabric.

Cut a small square, with edges of approximately 2", out of the fabric. This will be your pocket for the front.

Fold the edges of the pocket 1/4" to the wrong side. Iron them to hold the fold.

Sew along the top edge of the pocket (I prefer hand-stitching, but you can use a sewing machine for all of this, if you like). If you want to decorate your pocket, by adding buttons or embroidery, do that now.

Place the pocket in the centre of one of your hearts, both right sides facing up. Pin in place, and sew around the three remaining sides, attaching the pocket to the heart.

Stack the two hearts together, right sides together, so that the pocket is sandwiched in the middle. Place your ribbon between the hearts, so that it forms a loop, with the ends sticking out at the top. 

Sew around the edges, leaving a 3" gap for turning.

Turn your heart inside out, and fill with stuffing. Sew up the gap.

To add messages, we simply cut thin strips of paper, 1" wide and 6" long. For us, what seemed best was writing down the things we would have like to be able to say to Mormor. You could also fill you hearts with favourite memories, prayers, quotations, small instant photographs, favourite sweets or flowers.

Thanks again for sharing your lives with me over the week. For those of you who will be creating your own tree of hearts, I hope it brings you comfort and peace. xx

Hearts, Hearts, Everywhere

As you might imagine, our home is rather red. I will, sooner or later, make red curtains for the windows, but until then, little garlands of red hearts hang down in front of the blinds to add a bit of colour, and a bit of Danish warmth for the winter. 

The garlands were a product of one night in, watching a film. With nothing else to sew, I sat and simply cut heart after heart out of red felt. By the end of the movie, I had a pile of fifty hearts, and the sheer quantity of them inspired me to string them together and hang them from our exceptionally high, curtainless curtain rods.

Making your own garland couldn't be easier, whether you choose to cut out hearts from felt yourself, or buy ready made ornaments, such as the ceramic ones below (from potglasshande), and string them together.

Danish designer, Maileg, also has some lovely stuffed fabric hearts, ready-made, in fun stripes and spots. 

I love the idea of warmth and love shining out from our house through each window. I think it'll be quite hard to get myself to take the hearts down from the windows when winter comes to an end!

I Keep My Heart on the Shelf

Over the weekend, we also finally made it to a Pottery Barn to use the gift card we got two years ago for the wedding! After hours of deliberating, we both decided on this fun little numbered cubby:

With twenty-five little boxes, it'll be perfect for an advent calendar come winter, but will look lovely for the rest of the year, too, holding photos:

Or sewing materials:

Or, inspired by one of my Auntie Jenni's recent photos, lots of lots of hearts:

Hearts have it, originally uploaded by Saxongirl.

So many ideas! Luckily, we can switch things in and out whenever we want!