So here we are.  It’s almost Valentine’s day.  This idea came to me as I was falling asleep (as many ideas do).  I’m actually kind of surprised I remembered it in the morning.  But happily, I did.

I really hate to waste things, especially pretty fabric scraps.  So this is another one that let’s you dig through your basket leftovers (or you can buy some brand new fabric, wink, wink).

So, you’ll need to choose your scraps.  It doesn’t matter too much what the colours are.  They’ll all blend in.  I chose pinks and browns for this one.  You’ll need 3 strips.   You can sew pieces together to make strips though, so try not to let size discourage you.  You can see in the picture that I sewed a few of my pieces together.  Your pieces should be about 30 cm long and 5-8 cm wide.  It depends on the size of heart you want though.  I folded and ironed them but you don’t have to.

The bigger the heart, the bigger the pieces…

Aside from fabric scraps you’ll need the following:

  • wire (I used 18 gauge)
  • wire cutters
  • pliers

I’m showing the picture here, not because I think you don’t know what the above are but I didn’t know that you could buy wire on a spool like that.  Did you?  I got it at Canadian Tire.

Then, cut your pieces of wire into whatever size you want your heart to be.  I made a bunch of different sizes.  Next you are going to braid the fabric with the wire.  I wrapped the wire around the ends of all three strips and sort of tucked the wire in the fold of one of the pieces:

Then all you have to do is braid.  Mine wasn’t super tight at the beginning so when I finished the braid and clamped the wire on the finished end I went back to the beginning, undid the braid and re-braided the first section.  When both sides are clamped with the extra wire so your braid doesn’t undo, you can cut off all but one of the strips because you’ll need this to wrap around the wire where the two pieces meet.  Oh yes, you’ll want about 5-10 cm of extra wire to wind around and attach the two sides of the heart together.

Shape your heart.  Big and fat? Thin and pointy?

Wrap the one piece of fabric that you left behind around the part where the two sections meet.  I added a dab of glue and then ironed the strip so that you could not see any frayed ends.  I gave this piece a light spray of fabric adhesive, stuck it together and tah-dah!  Scrappy Heart.

I like to make things and decorate for the holidays but I’m rather slow in removing those decorations.  I wonder how long this one will hang around for?

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