Happy Heart Day

So, once again it is time to celebrate St Valentine's Day or as I like to think of it "Happy Heart Day". Our inboxes get filled with heart-shaped everything, as are our shops. This got me thinking about the heart-shape.

It is a shape that I have been working with a bit lately. I have embroidered hearts, like this one on my quilt block folder (designed by Faeries in My Garden)

 Also these very simple hearts that I designed (pattern here) and embroidered on pillowcases 

 I took the same design and made it a bit bolder by using blanket stitch applique for the hearts (pattern here)

 Then I was having so much fun with my hearts that I wanted to make some 3-dimensional ones. Of course they had to have some embroidery and applique too!

I was looking through my ribbon stash and found some pretty organza ribbons, so decided to group my puffy little hearts into a door hanger (pattern here) or you could hang it on the wall or in front of a window too.

All of these designs got me thinking about designing with hearts. I love to work with the shape, not just around St Valentine's Day. The heart is an easy shape to draw, either with a pencil or in drawing programs. I mostly like to work with symmetrical heart shapes like the ones shown above, they appeal to my OCD side. It is easily done by drawing half of a heart on a page, folding the page in two and cutting along the line. Then your inner designer can get busy with the embellishment.

Thinking along these lines, I looked around at some of the projects I have made in the past. Hearts have featured quite a few times. I have filled them with machine stitches and beads,

 
 made them from crazy patchwork fabric

and in both of these projects, used heart shapes as quilting designs. I am inspired to create even more projects with hearts and may even use some asymmetrical hearts like this one:

 I am loving hearts and planning a special St Valentine's Day, how about you?