Cards for Hospitalized Kids

I have to share with you a fabulous idea from a reader named Lynn. She received one of my Hope Heart Starter Kits a while ago, and she was inspired to use the heart templates in the kit to make greeting cards for a wonderful organization called Cards for Hospitalized Kids. When you click on that name and go to the website, you will see how easy it would be for you to brighten the day of a hospitalized child by making and sending a greeting card.

Here are two cards that Lynn made using my heart templates (you can find them at the end of the post HERE, and print them out on your computer). I love how these look! What a great way to use up extra scrapbook paper! What a nice message she wrote inside! The stickers inside are a really cute touch too.

I haven't made any cards--YET--but I intend to. In fact, even though I haven't been feeling especially "crafty" lately,  I am strongly tempted to commit myself to a "card-a-day" challenge (like the "heart-a-day" challenge I undertook in 2012). Or what about a Facebook group, where everyone could post pictures of the cards they make? This could be just what I need to get back into general crafting, while doing good at the same time. The cards could be as simple or as elaborate as time allows, and I'm very inspired by the photos of the kids on the website, posing with their cards. So I will be participating in this, one way or another. Anyone else?

July Challenge Day #7

After Thursday's post of a patriotic heart, I received a request for one of my hope hearts kits. Since this is an on-going project of mine (click on the tab above marked "Request a Hope Hearts Starter Kit" to learn more), you might think I have a big stockpile of hearts ready to send as soon as I get a request. Not so! I find myself lacking the motivation to work on the hearts if I don't have a request for them. Here are the hearts I just made, and will send out tomorrow.

Hope in the Mail

Tomorrow I'll be sending these hearts off to a friend in need.  Feel better soon, dear; I love you!

Hearts for Children of Chernobyl

I love making hearts, and I love it when I can help a worthy cause with my hearts!

 I was recently contacted by Cecilia, who runs a program in the state of Washington called Children of Chernobyl. They raise funds to bring children from the area of Russia that was affected by a nuclear accident over 20 years ago, to her city for a health respite and medical care.  Cecilia is putting together baskets for a silent auction during their annual fundraiser, and she wanted to include one of my Hope Hearts starter kits in a crafts basket.  She also had the idea of including a clear pitcher of hearts as a "visual" near the basket.  Of course I agreed to send the Hope Hearts starter kit (which I am still sending, free of charge, to anyone who asks--the information is at the top of this page), but I also wanted to help fill up the pitcher, so I am also sending the dozen hearts in this picture.

Good luck with your fundraiser, Cecilia, and God bless you for helping children!!

Halfway to One Hundred

I'm slightly more than halfway to my goal of 100 hearts for the charity Christmas tree for The Giving Heart in December.  But 100 is actually my "safe" goal--that's the minimum number I think would be enough for the 7 1/2 foot tall Christmas tree.  My true goal is 200, but it's too soon to tell if I will be able to reach that mark.

Here are the first 51 hearts:

I love how colorful they are!  Now I'm off to my sewing room to start on the next 50; each of those hearts will feature the name of one of the organization's volunteers.

A Chance to Share What You Make

If you like to sew, and you wish you could do something to help others with your sewing, this post is for YOU!   I have a couple of fantastic ideas that I have to tell you about!

Let's start at the beginning...there is a wonderful blog about embroidery that I read every day, called Wild Olive.  If you click on that name, you will go to the post I read last week, telling about a  project to make tote bags decorated with an embroidered patch for an organization in Richmond, Virginia, that hosts a huge Thanksgiving Feast for the community every year. As the guests leave, they are given a bag of essential personal items, as well as food and other things left from the feast.  That organization is called The Giving Heart.  Click on the name to visit the website and learn more about them.

Wild Olive directs you to another blog, Abbie Living.  Abbie is the young wife and mother with a great big heart who is organizing the tote bag drive.  If you click on that name you will go directly to her tote bag information page; it will tell you all the details.  If you can make and send a tote bag with a decorative patch, great!  But she will also take just the patch, or just the bag, or even fabric to make the bag, and she will put them all together and send them to The Giving Heart.

I am so excited that I just finished making two bags to send!  I thought I would make morsbags, which I love, but the more I read about the Thanksgiving Feast and all the goodies the guest get to take with them, the more I thought a morsbag would be too small. So I modified a pattern from bijou lovely called the Market Tote.  They came out huge and wonderful!! I've never made a bag this big, but I love them and expect to make a lot more of them.  They are so big, in fact, that I had to move outside to my front steps to take the pictures!

The finished size (after I modified the pattern) is 16" tall, 20" wide at the top, tapering down to 13" wide at the bottom, and 7" deep at the bottom.  I need to say thank you to my generous reader Carmen, who sent me the pink and yellow fabric I used on these bags.

For my patches, I decided to be a rebel (sorry Wild Olive and Abbie!) and make fabric collages rather than embroidery.  This is something I've been having fun with lately, and I think the patches look amazing (if I do say so myself)!

I cut the fabrics freehand and left all the edges raw.  When I was pleased with the arrangement, I sewed around all the edges, so the edges will fray with use and washing, but the fabrics will be secure and should last as long as the bag.

I will put my totes in the mail tomorrow.

But there's more to this story!  I chatted a bit with Abbey via e-mail, and after she saw my 365 Sewn Hearts blog, she told me that Vicki, the director of The Giving Heart, had mentioned that they were hoping to decorate a Christmas tree with hearts for a charity auction, but they didn't have anyone to make the hearts...can you see where this is going?  I sent an e-mail to Vicki, got a reply, made a phone call, and now I'm in charge of hearts for the Christmas tree!  Yay!

So here's the second way you can sew to help others:  make a heart or two and send them directly to The Giving Heart.  All the information is on my 365 Sewn Hearts blog, so click on that name to go to the post with all the details.  I will start sewing hearts for the tree this weekend, so hopefully I will have some to show here next week.  You don't have to sign up, but if you are thinking of making a heart, I'd love it if you would leave a comment so I will have a general idea of how much help I will have.  If you do make a heart (or two), you can send me a picture (leslieandersen4@gmail.com) and I will post the pictures on my blog early in December.  I hope to hear from a lot of you!

Cutter Quilts, Continued

In my last post I showed you the first cutter quilt I recently bought on eBay.  As I explained there, "cutter quilts" are old, worn-out quilts that are too damaged to be useful as a covering any longer.  The undamaged areas can be reclaimed and used to make other items.

I just finished making a few brooches from that quilt:

To find the most interesting areas from which to cut the brooch, I made a clear plastic heart-shaped template, and positioned it over areas of the quilt where several different fabrics were close together.  When I liked what I saw under the template, I traced the heart with a pencil and cut it out.  Each one is about 2 1/2" wide and tall.

The small pink heart on the above brooch was also cut from the quilt.

Each heart is backed with wool-blend felt with a pin sewn to it.

This last one is my favorite, because of the beautiful aqua-blue fabric in the center, and I love the flower (cut free-hand from three fabric scraps I found in my sewing room.)  I tried to keep these brooches sweet and simple, so the quilt would shine through.


Now, onto the second cutter quilt I bought!  I paid $25 for this one on eBay.

It's an Irish Chain pattern, and although the seller described it as "pink and white", it really is more of a rusty red and ecru.  This quilt was made by a skilled quilter; it was hand-pieced, and the quilting stitches are all small and even.  It is a really beautiful quilt, despite the large faded area in the center, the badly frayed areas of the binding, and the torn spots in the backing.  Even with those problems, I'm not sure this is a "cutter".  It might be too good to cut up.  I think I will fold it and put it where it can be seen and admired in my house.

I assume it came from an estate sale in Connecticut (where the seller lives); there was a hand-written note pinned to it that said "Quilted by Harriet May Howes Downer".

You readers left some interesting comments on my previous post.  Gill (in the UK) wondered if cutter quilts are a "U.S." thing, because this was a new idea to her; it probably is American, because we have a rich history of quilting here, and there are a lot of old, battered quilts in closets and attics.  Another reader mentioned that she has an old quilt of her grandmother's that came out of the barn!  She has been reluctant to cut it up, and I TOTALLY understand where you are coming from, Charlene.  I have no emotional attachment to these eBay quilts, but it's still hard to make the first cut!  I would encourage you to take lots of pictures of it in it's present state, and then carefully plan how you will use it before cutting it, so you can preserve as much of your grandmother's work as possible.  I know your family members would appreciate having a pillow or wall hanging or something else made from her quilt.

I have one more eBay quilt that I will show you in a future post.  It is the most interesting of the three, because it is double-sided (a pieced quilt on both front and back) AND instead of batting, it is filled with...another quilt!!  I just need to wash it before taking pictures; you can expect to see that one in a few days.

A Look at Cutter Quilts

"Cutter quilts" are old, worn-out quilts that are considered too damaged to be a useful covering any longer; rather than throwing them in the garbage, they are re-purposed by cutting them up and using the "good" parts in other items, like pillows or stuffed toys.  I've always taken a dim view of this practice, because pieces of cutter quilts were being sold online, and what was to stop sellers from cutting up quilts that were still in good condition?  I worried that pretty soon ALL the old quilts would be cut up, and once they're gone, they're gone.

Recently, however, I took a look at vintage quilts on eBay, specifically those labeled "cutter".  There are TONS of them, and they generally sell for under $40.  Vintage quilts in good condition (not labeled "cutter") were selling for hundreds of dollars.  Clearly there is a distinction between them, and sellers realize they will get more money for a usable, intact quilt, so my fears were put to rest.

I put bids on a few of the cutter quilts, and I ended up winning three of them.  The first one was mine for just $10!  I could hardly wait to get my hands on it, to see the actual condition.  Here it is:

It's a full-sized scrappy quilt, with a large and interesting variety of fabrics, which I love!  One edge is completely frayed and shredded, and there are MANY holes and missing pieces of fabrics, especially in the middle.  The first thing I noticed as I took it out of the box was that it smelled of cigarette smoke, so I had to wash it.  The picture above was taken as it was drying on my back porch--(it would have gone to pieces in the dryer).

Here you can see one of the intact areas of the quilt:

This quilt was entirely pieced together by hand!  The quilting was done by hand too.  I think the big, uneven quilting stitches are charming, and this quilt will be perfect for re-using.

The picture below shows one of the many damaged areas.  Some of the fabrics have completely disintegrated:

It probably won't surprise you to know that the first thing I've made with my cutter quilt is some hearts:

I want to salvage as much of the quilt as possible, so I cut the small blue checked heart (below) from a scrap.

The fabrics are beautifully faded and soft.

On this heart (below) I used a piece of the backing (from an area where the front had a big hole) as the base of a small collage of  fabric and buttons.

As I make more hearts and other things from this quilt, I will be careful to always tell the people who receive my gifts that they were made from a vintage quilt.  I want to be sure the work of the unknown quilter is acknowledged and appreciated.

MORE Scissors Fobs

You probably know that I'm working on a challenge on my other blog (365 Sewn Hearts) to make 365 sewn hearts this year.  I want to share a small milestone that I reached this week:  I've filled up a second pint-sized canning jar with heart-shaped wool felt scissors fobs.  The timing is perfect, because my enthusiasm for these fob-hearts has decidedly waned!  It's funny, because for 2 months I've been a fob-making machine, full of excitement and new ideas; but now I am very ready to move on to something completely different.  There are still over 100 days left in my challenge, and I have a good idea that will carry me through a large chunk of that time--if you check my heart blog in about a week, you will see what that idea is!

The two jars full of fobs:

Here they are, all nicely arranged!

You can see how small they are in the picture below, with one resting on my fingertips.  Each heart is about 1 3/8" in each direction.

The two below aren't in the group picture because I gave them away in personal swaps this month, with people on Craftster.

The snowman went to Homerof2.  (She is in Canada, and I also sent her a Canadian flag fob; the one in the picture above was the "reject" because I felt that the maple leaf was too tall and skinny!)

This beauty of a chicken now lives with waggonswest

I love looking at all of these hearts; and I expect I will make a few more before the year is out, when I get some new ideas for them.

Lavender Sachets and Pincushions

I've been making lavender sachets; this is one of the projects I promised to show you that requires baker's twine.  Two readers have told me that after seeing my post about baker's twine, they placed orders from Talking Twine and Trim--the etsy store where I got mine.  That's awesome, fiddlegirl8 and Lime Riot--I hope you like yours as much as I like mine!


I made these lavender sachets for two reasons:  first, I was trying to come up with new heart-shaped things for my other blog, 365 Sewn Hearts (I need a heart for every day of this year!); and I need stock for my little booth in a local shop.  This project was so perfect for both!  I've made lavender sachets before, but in a different style, so it was nice to make something new.  I had lavender on hand, so I jumped right in!


Sixteen lavender sachets:

The picture below shows how I started.  I printed out words and phrases on the computer, then traced them onto white fabric using my light box and a micron marker. I have an assortment of the micron pens, each with a different sized writing tip, so for different projects I can use whatever size works best with the font size I've chosen for my letters.

I cut out a bunch of hearts from various fabrics, and ironed interfacing onto the back of each to give the finished heart a more "solid" feel.  Then I cut out the words and phrases, and machine sewed them to the front of each heart.  I took all the hearts to my sewing chair in the family room and watched TV while I hand-sewed a running stitch with embroidery thread around the edge of each phrase, using the machine stitching as my guide.  (I always try to have some kind of handwork ready near my sewing chair--I don't like to watch TV without it!)

Then I chose two buttons to accent the front of each heart, and sewed those on.

Back at the sewing machine, I sewed the heart fronts to matching backs, stopping at the top to add two 12" lengths of baker's twine.  Then I turned them right-side-out, stuffed them with lavender, and sewed the openings shut. 

I packaged each heart in a ziplock baggie with my business card, and put them in a basket to take to Country Treasures.

I thought I had an endless supply of lavender in my closet, so I was surprised when it ran out before I had finished filling all the hearts!  I decided to turn the remaining hearts into pincushions.  To keep pins from poking through the back, I cut plastic food-container lids into heart shapes and put them inside the hearts before filling them with polyester fiberfill. 

The front and back of un-stuffed pincushions:

Eleven pincushions, all finished!

This is my favorite one, because I love the the print and colors of this fabric.  I think I will keep this for myself!

Felt Heart Keychain Tutorial

On my other blog, 365 Sewn Hearts, I recently posted some of these heart keychains that I made.  One of my readers, Kay, was interested in them because they are all hand-sewing, so I thought I would show her, and you, exactly how to make them.

You will need:
--cotton fabric with a small print (choose this carefully as it will be the center of attention!)
--wool felt
--embroidery thread
--Heat n Bond Lite, or other two-sided, fusible interfacing that you can sew through
--heavy sew-in interfacing
--key ring
--sewing thread and needle
--heart templates (at the end of this post)--they work best if you trace them onto plastic and cut them out.  You may need to/want to resize the templates when you print them out.  The large one is 2 5/8" wide and 2 3/4" tall.  The smaller one is 2 1/2" wide and 2 3/8" tall.

Start by tracing the smaller heart onto the smooth side of the Heat n Bond. Cut it out, just outside the line, and iron it onto the cotton fabric.  When it is cool, cut out the heart on the drawn line (this cut doesn't have to look perfect because the edge will be hidden under the felt). 
Still using the small template, trace and cut out 2 hearts from the heavy interfacing.  (I used two interfacing hearts for added firmness in my finished keychain.)

Next, cut a strip of your cotton fabric  2" x 3 1/2" for the key fob.

Iron the strip in half lengthwise, then fold each side in to the center crease, and press.

Sew the open side shut.  Don't bother to sew the ends, because they will be covered.

Slip the keyring onto the fabric and fold the strip in half.  Baste the ends together.  Set aside.

Next, using the larger heart template, trace three hearts onto the felt.  A ballpoint pen works great for this.  Only one of the hearts needs to have the center heart drawn onto it.

Cut out the three felt hearts.  Now all your pieces are ready to assemble into a beautiful keychain!

Remove the paper from the back of the fabric heart, and iron it onto one of the solid wool hearts.  Then position the keyring fob behind this heart, leaving about 1/2"-3/4" of the fob exposed, and sew firmly into place.  Remember to only sew in the area that will be covered by the heart with the "window" cut out of it.

Here's the back.  You can trim the cotton fabric to within 1/4" of where you sewed it to the felt heart, if you wish.

Next, layer the two interfacing hearts under the wool heart, and lay the cut-out wool heart over the fabric heart.

Baste the layers together.  The red basting stitches will be removed, so they can be big and sloppy!

This is what the back looks like.  (The heart on the left is the piece that will cover the interfacing after a few more steps.)

Using a blanket stitch, sew around the inner heart with the embroidery thread.

This is what the back looks like.  Now, remove these basting stitches.

Here's the last step:  with the third felt heart layered onto the back, baste all the layers together, then embroider around the outside edge with a blanket stitch.  (There are lots of places online that explain the blanket stitch, like this one at Stitch School.)

Remove the basting stitches, and you are done.  Looks great!!

The back looks great too!