Gingham Hearts

I started making these initialed gingham hearts for Christmas yesterday. I know Christmas is still miles away but I want to be a bit organised this year, and I didn't know how these would go, I thought it might take me 8 weeks to get it right! As it turned out I think they're coming along really nicely. The one with the letter 'T' is for my sister-in-law and the one with the 'R' is for her son.

To make the hearts I cut out 2 heart shapes from the red gingham, then I cut out a large letter'T' from the navy denim (leftover from the denim tote I made). I then cut out a smaller 'T' from the red felt, and sewed a white heart shaped button onto it. Then, because I used denim which is stretchy and will fray (unlike the felt), I sewed the 'T' onto one of the heart shapes using zig-zag stitch. Next I sewed the red 'T' onto the larger denim 'T', so the navy denim becomes a boarder around the red letter helping it to stand out more against the red and white check fabric. I then sewed the two hearts, and the hanging ribbon together leaving a gap to stuff it with cotton wool. I also stuffed a few cloves in there too to make it smell Christmasy, before stitching up the gap. They're really simple and fairly quick to make. If I'm not completely sick of them over the next few weeks I might make some more for around the house for all year round. I might make one for the kitchen adding coffee beans instead of cloves, and a nice change to the usual lavender hearts.