Stitched Love by Robin Seiz

Hello Friends! We are in the month of LOVE. I know that many people feel like Valentine’s Day is a made up commercial holiday, but I have always treated it as a special day when I can tell the people I love how much they mean to me. Call me a sentimental, sappy artist, but that’s ok with me!!! Valentines don’t have to be the traditional hearts; (although they are nice too) they can be anything that says, “I love you” from your heart.

I decided to combine fabric and stamping, and some very simple hand stitching for my project. If you have never hand stitched, I would encourage you to give it a try. Honestly, I use the most basic stitches most of the time and this project is no exception. There are tons of YouTube videos about the basic stitches, so I’m not going to describe them other than to name them in this blog.

Today's project features: 

• Be Grateful today rubber-stamp from RubberMoon
• Kae Pea | Heart in Hand | Foam Stamp
• Kae Pea | You are Loved | Foam Stamp

I started with a piece of white linen fabric. (somewhere around 6”x8", but you can use whatever size and color you want) I didn’t prepare the fabric in any way because it’s not going to be washed.

Using KP’s Heart in Hand Artfoamie, I stamped the image on the fabric using blue acrylic paint.

I sewed on an appliqué on this hand. That sounds fancy, but it’s really just sewing one piece of fabric, in this case a heart, to your main piece of fabric. I stamped the image without the heart, so there was a white heart on the white linen. I made a pattern of the small heart by stamping it on a piece of card stock and I cut out my pattern. I chose the coordinating yellow and red fabric for my appliqué-heart and cut it slightly bigger than the pattern. I sewed this over the white linen fabric using a coordinating embroidery thread. I used a running stitch to sew around the heart and small stitches to accent the red marks in the heart.

Then I embellished the fingers with complimentary embroidery thread. Again, I used simple stitches, long satin stitches, not to close, cross stitch, a few beads, french knots, and a short running stitch. Once the piece was finished, I trimmed it and inserted it into a card frame which is 7” x 5”. The recipient can display it as Is, or take it out of the card.

For the heart with the red hand, I used a reverse appliqué technique. This is done by choosing a coordinating piece of fabric (the blue and white flower pattern) and laying it under the white linen fabric where the heart will show. With coordinating embroidery thread (in this case blue) I hand stitched 2 lines of running stitches around the heart securing the patterned fabric to the underside of the white linen. Once secure and following the lines of the embroidery stitch, I cut out a heart from ONLY the white linen. This leaves a reverse appliqué and the blue and white patterned fabric showing. Easy and honestly, quite a dramatic look.

Next, I hand stitched the “rings” on each finger using very easy hand stitches. Long and short running stitches, french knots, cross stitches, and I think I threw in a bullion stitch, but you wouldn’t need to. Of course, you could use any stitch you want to create a totally different look. Get creative! If you don’t want to hand-stitch, you could use Posca pens to add detail. The sky is the limit. Once all the rings were finished, I cut the piece down to the size of the card and used a running stitch to attach it to the top of the card. The recipient can either display it as is, or take it off and put it in a small frame.

For the heart Artfoamie, (I’m can’t swear to it, but I think this may have been a freebie one month by KP) but you could use any heart Artfoamie. I stamped the image in red acrylic paint and then used both a small flat and a small round brush to fill in the white spots with acrylic paint. Again, I didn’t prepare the fabric because it wasn’t going to be washed. I trimmed the fabric to size and used a running stitch to attach it to the card. I stamped the Rubbermoon Stamp “Be Grateful Today” to a blank piece of card stock. I colored in the open spaces with red posca pen and rubbed the edges with black ink. I used dimensional tape to attach it to the card.

For the last one, I used the Artfoamie by Kae Pea, You are Loved. What a perfect sentiment for Valentine's day! For this one, I stamped the image on white linen with red acrylic paint. I decorated everything around the words, You Are Loved, in hand stitching (french knots, small seed stitches, and and cross stitch) and then put a border of running stitch in teal around the piece to set it off.

I trimmed it and framed this piece with a 5” x 7” mat.

 

I hope you try your hand a the combination of stamping and stitching. If you try it, please tag me on social media with your projects. I would love to see what you create! 

Until next blog, happy stamping and stitching.

Robin