More hearts for Christchurch

As promised, some hearts made from the remaining wool.  Here are three of them all stuffed and finished.

This was a bit of an experiment.  I didn't have much dissolving stabiliser so I tried something else.

I started by ironing on some fusible web to the front of the fabric.





Teased out the wool roving to cover the fusible web.





Scattered my threads over the wool.





This is where things went a bit wrong. I thought a layer of bondable Angelina fibre on top would be a good idea. I only have white and thought it would blend into the wool. Wrong! I managed to peel the layer of Angelina and my fancy yarns off the wool and turn it over.




Then I used the backing paper from the fusible web. I put the paper on top of the wool and threads and sewed some lines to hold it all down. I tore the paper off and sewed some lines going across the previous lines.  That was a bit difficult.  The foot kept getting caught in the yarns.



And the finished fabric after washing in hot soapy water.


And this was my second attempt. I used the two small pieces of soluble stabiliser instead. I also put the Angelina fibres under the fancy yarns instead.


Here's a good tip I picked up from Abby Glassenberg. Instead of cutting the felt out with a seam allowance, use a freezer paper template, sew around the freezer paper and then trim back the seam allowance. Abby makes the most amazing soft sculptures. They aren't toys. They're works of art.
I have reused the same bit of freezer paper for six hearts here. I'm not going to turn these hearts out to I have sewn the felt on to the wrong side of the fabric. I cut a little triangle out so that I could place the ribbon for hanging the heart.


After cutting out the heart, I stuffed them...



... and then sewed the hole shut to complete the heart.





This is my second piece. The Angelina fibre didn't go like a white spiderweb this time. You can't really see it in this photo but it went iridescent instead of white. Not sure if that was because it was next to the wool roving this time and bonded with the wool or if I put hotter water on and it washed some of the dye ou of the wool. Anyway, it looks great and I can't wait to make up another set of hearts with pink felt. I've run out of ribbon so they will have to wait. :(