Valentine Stitching

I love Valentine's Day and I always like to do some 'heart' stitching for the season. My first item is a card I made after being sick for a week and not doing much of anything. I had some computer problems and now that I'm back up, I can't seem to find the freebie that I used to stitch this design. It was the final thing I printed on my old computer from a collection of tree designs in monochrome with no specified colors. Maybe someone else will recognize it. I used a variety of pinks in no particular order on a scrap of hand-dyed Aida from Sassy's. The sequins are all different colors, but I think they don't show up too well on the photo. I felt like a kid in grade school arts and crafts making this up on Sunday morning.



My friend Jane did a double enabling trick on me for the next pieces. First, she introduced me to Raspberry Rabbits and the free heart of the month stitchery patterns that were offered on this site in 2011. I had been asking fellow blogging embroiderers how they transfer designs to fabric, and Jane told me about an inexpensive mini-light table, only 6" x 9", mostly designed for card-makers to use for embossing. I found one on overstock.com and took a chance that it would work out. Turns out to be perfect for smaller designs. I used each of my four favorite hearts as the centerpiece on a quilted coaster. Each of them has been received by a fellow stitcher at this point. It was good practice for me to make them.

One for Nia:


One for Annette:



One for Wendy:


One for Michelle:



I also sent Michelle a little manicure scissors to use for frogging a few stitches. The curved tips are perfect for this. I made a little pouch to hold it with a pretty crocheted motif as embellishment.




Finally, I was so charmed by the little triangular thread-catchers I had seen on so many blogs that I just had to try making one. Myra made tons of them as gifts so I figured maybe they were a quick project if she had time to make so many. I found the tute here. Easy to make, but hard to make perfect. I had to sew the sides by hand since my machine balked at going through 8 layers of fabric! Maybe there is a trick to this that I missed. Anyway, it's kind of cute sitting on the arm of my stitching chair and it continues my Valentine's theme.