easy felt heart garland

Happy Valentine's day! I have to admit, I got used to having garlands decorating my kitchen windows over Christmas, and they've felt bare ever since ... Valentine's day was the perfect excuse to create a new garland! This is a very easy, low-key hand-sewing project. The most work intensive part is cutting out all your hearts! If you'd like to make your own garland, here are my project notes:

• I traced two heart-shaped cookie cutters to make my "pattern." (the large one was approximately 4.5" wide, the small one was approximately 2" wide)
• I added a rectangular "tab" to the left side of the large heart pattern for attaching each heart to each other (see photos below).
• To make one garland, I ended up needing 11 large hearts to stretch across the length of my windows. (note: leave the "tab" off your first heart in the chain. So you'll need 10 hearts with tabs, one heart without). You'll also need 11 small hearts.
  
• I alternated red and white hearts with contrasting color small hearts, but this would look great in other patterns (two red, one white). This would look really cute in bright pinks, oranges, and lime colors!
• I ended up using five sheets of 9x11 felt per color to create TWO garlands.
  

Here's how I fit my patterns on each sheet, for minimal waste.

Now, how to connect each heart ... basically, I made my "tabs" long enough that the stitches I used to sew two hearts together would be covered up by the contrasting color small heart on top. So you'll want to sew as close to the end of the "tab" as possible to make that happen. Use embroidery thread that matches the color of the heart that is on top (the red heart in the pictures below), and then even if your small heart doesn't cover all of your stitches, it won't matter since they'll blend in.

Now, place your small contrasting color heart on top, and hand-stitch it to the large heart using a contrasting color embroidery thread! I wasn't too picky about alignment, I just eyeballed it, using the "points" of the heart as my guide for lining things up.

Finally, cut two skinny (approximately 1/2 inch wide) strips of felt that are approximately 8 inches long. Fold in half, and sew to the ends of your garland to use for hanging!

So cute, huh? I think I'll be keeping this up all week!