Valentine Hearts~ A tutorial for Accuquilt dies

 Hey everyone, 

I'm back today with a quick and simple tutorial for making these adorable hearts using your Accuquilt dies!

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Aren't they adorable? And they were supe simple to make, AND used a few scraps ( but why do those seem to multiply every time I'm not looking?), AND you could ofcourse make these for other occasions as well!

This is what you will need to make them:

1. fabric scraps
2. sewing machine
3. Accuquilt dies and machine
4. fusible web
5. felt or wool
6. ribbon or thin fabric strips
7. fancy scissors ( optional)
8. buttons and thread ( optional)
9. rubber stamps and ink or a printer ( optional)

Here is what I did: 

I grabbed my bag of scraps and started sewing them together randomly~different sizes, different colors, some even had selvedge because they were CUTE! I would press when needed and then I would trim a straight edge so I had a straight edge to sew my next scrap onto.

When I felt that a section had too many uniform pieces, I simply slashed it in half with my rotary cutter and continued sewing on ( now) 2 sections.

I kept on sewing until I was  pleased with my sections,straightening edges as needed...

...and slashing sections as needed.

Eventually I sewed all my sections into a large, square-ish piece of "new" fabric:

Next, it was time to grab my fusible web. It doesn't matter what kind you use at all! I tried to cut pieces that would mostly cover my newly created fabric piece:

And then I fused that to the BACK of my fabric, following the manufacturer's directions.

Now I was ready for my dies, so I pulled out the ones I wanted to use, in this case the Queen of Hearts die ( click), and the Heart die ( click), plus my machine. I normally would pull out my Go!Me, but in this case, the bigger Go! seemed like it might work better with my possibly wider strips of fabric!

I already have my dies marked with measurements so I can see at a glance how wide my fabric needs to be, so I was able to subcut my strips very quickly. I chose to only run ONE layer of fabric through at a time because 1) I was in no hurry and I didn't need to make a ton, and 2) some of those fabrics are of course overlapping AND there is fusible, which counts as half a layer.( Remember the rule about NO MORE than 6 layers!)

I chose only to make the biggest hearts on my dies, but if you wanted to make a little heart garland it would be super cute with the smaller hearts ( hmmmm, guess what I'm doing later today??)

( p.s. Isn't that selvedge in there a fun addition?)

After I cut a bunch of hearts, I took them, some ribbon and thin fabric scraps, plus a piece of wool felt to my iron and laid them out ( removing the paper backing from the fusible web at this point), leaving some space between the hearts.

I carefully tucked the open ends of the ribbon/fabric strip between the hearts and the felt, and then used my iron to activate the fusible and stick all three together.

WARNING: Some felt and ribbon might melt from the heat of your iron, so proceed carefully and test on a small section first! This is what happened to my super cute ribbon as I was fusing: 

Not only did my ribbon melt, but the goop got stuck on my iron and it was not easy to get off! 

After fusing everything together, I roughcut around my hearts and then chose some "fancy" scissors to cut around my hearts, leaving a little bit of the felt background showing.

I have to tell you that my scallop scissors from Benzie Design ( https://www.benziedesign.com/pages/search-results-page?q=scissors) are just the best thing!

If you don't have any of these kind of scissors, no worries, just use regular straight blades, but still leave a little edge of felt showing.

Now I was ready for some final touches to my hearts!

So I chose some tan thread to compliment my tan felt and used a triple stitch to sew around the edges of my fabric ( you could use a straight stitch or a zig zag or anything else you like!)

Stitching around your fabric will make sure your ribbon/ strips of fabric stay attached, as well as securing your hearts to the background.

And then I needed to add just a few more touches to make these hearts extra special: So I pulled out a scrap of lightcolored fabric, a black ink pad, and a few rubber stamps, and stamped some sayings:

You don't need to use any special ink, and you don't need to treat these in any way, because I am assuming these hearts are not going to get washed, ever. ( And by the way, if you want to add words or sayings, but don't have rubber stamps and ink, use your printer! There are plenty of tutorials online on how to do this, and I have done it succesfully, and maybe some day I will remember to take photos and write up a little tutorial!)

I trimmed my  words and sewed them onto my hearts by machine ( Choose any manner that pleases YOU). I hand sewed some buttons onto a few of my hearts and then decided they were finished!

Tadaaaaa!

Aren't they so cute? And again, you don't need to make these for Valentine's Day. You could make them to attach to a present or to a garland, for a baby's room, etc. And you can  ofcourse use different dies and use the exact same method I described here! I made some adorable kittens in that manner!

I hope you have a ton of fun making some, and do let me know if you have any questions!

And just in case you now need to check out some Accuquilt machines, here is a final link ( click)