Crazy hearts.. I finished something

I love crazy quilting. I think of all the sewing avenues, this has to be my most favorite. Scraps of fabric, yarns, threads, buttons, lace, trims, ribbons, stitches are delectable ingredients in this art form. For those of you unfamiliar with this type of sewing, click here for an on-line class. No rules, no boundaries, no limits.

I had started this piece of crazy quilting about a year ago. I promised some friends that I'd show them how this coming Tuesday evening. There is nothing like a deadline to light a fire under me to complete something! I had the piecing complete, not the decoration, so I still had a bit of work to do.
Once the hand stitching (oh and a bit of machine stitching too) was finished, I placed a piece of embroidery stabilizer on the right of the completed piece, sewed a heart shape and then trimmed to around the stitching, clipping in corners and curves. Then I snipped a small opening into the stabilizer so that I could then turn the piece right sides out.
Press the edges and the heart now has a clean edge with no raw threads hanging out. Pure magic.
I stamped my favorite piece using archival ink in brown on the 'center' piece.
A few close ups follow of the hand and machine stitching. The pink flowers are a purchased trim. The floral stitch is hand-stitched with multi-colored thread.
A simply way to get perfect cross stitches are to mark every 1/4" with a water soluble marker. When the stitching is finished, dab the marks with water and they are gone.
A basic couching stitch decorates the edge of the beige/white check linen.
The hanging holes were punched in the piece with a crop-a-dile. No need to finish the opening, the ribbon covers the raw fabric edges.
The cording is attached using a #10 edgestitch foot. Click the link for a video! I placed the finished heart edge on one side of the center blade on this sewing foot. I placed the cording on the other side of the center blade of the foot. Then thread your machine with monofilament thread. Adjust the zigzag stitch so that it takes a bite into the cording and into the finished edge of your project, sew around the piece and you have a professional finish in half the time!
To create a piece that can be hung - attach a chipboard (that stuff at the back of a paper pad) heart to the back of the completed heart. I used steam-a-seam II to attach the two together.

Have a great week. Check back for some blog candy this week!
PS.. I was in Joann's this past week and guess what I found on the sale shelves.. some of the metallic hearts used in the previous post. On sale no less. Life is good.