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Heart for Betty

Betty Pillsbury is a renowned crazy quilter whose business,  Green Spiral Herbs, was hit hard in recent flooding.  One of the members at Crazy Quilting International suggested we shower her with crazy quilted heart ornaments as a show of support.  This is my contribution.  I had wanted to get it done and sent off before I headed out to Colorado and I just made it!  The last stitches went on last night and I got it assembled.  So, one more blog post before I go! 

The guidelines were simply to use the template of your choice to make a 5 or 6 inch stuffed heart ornament featuring flowers and/or herbs.  We are trying to create a little garden for Betty to replace any plants she has lost in the flooding. 

This heart was pieced from a variety of fabrics - silks, satin, moire, brocade, etc.  If you follow my blog, you will recognize the lavender motif I wrote about a few days ago.  I also added "Lavender" in script at the top of the heart. 


I added this little scissor charm as a tribute to Betty's stitching.  After all, she does a lot more than work with herbs.  I added the fob by using a tiny chain stitch for the string and stitching the tassel.  For anything really small like this I go back to cotton floss - I just can't make silk buttonhole thread bend to my will the same way.  The tassel is a group of straight stitches.  Then I brought my needle up in the center underneath the straight stitches about a quarter of the way down and then wrapped it around them all a couple times before taking it back down to the back to create the tassel effect. 


The second floral motif I created by using a little crochet basket.   I tucked a couple good sized oyas into the basket and tacked them in place. I used three little dyed lace leaf groupings for the greenery.  This was from lace yardage that I cut up to use the individual sections of.  I overlapped them and when I stitched them in place I made sure to tack some of the individual leaves in such a way that they were forced to "bump up".  I think it adds some nice dimension, especially along with the oyas. Also, by changing the way the leaves lie, it takes away some of the repetitiveness of using three identical leaf bits.

So, this will be heading off in the mail now before I start my road trip.  Back to packing!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I love making hearts too.this one is lovely- very soft and pretty.
September 11, 2011 at 3:23 PM
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