Happiness is Homemade

In case you haven't figured it out, home equals Maine in my book. Today, I was really missing home. Just in time to salve my longing, a package arrived from a friend back home.

One of the things I love about Maine is its stability. Nothing much changes. Don't get me wrong. Businesses come and go (far too often sometimes). New developments are built (also far too often sometimes). Overall, though, things stay the same. There are the same people, the same old hiking trails, and the same quiet evenings surrounded by fireflies and mosquitoes.

It's a world filled with respect for the past, a world where people still can jam every year, grow gardens, and attend community bean suppers. It's also a world where older ladies keep pieces of that past to pass down to the next generation.

A woman my best friend goes to church with passed on a box of old cross stitching patterns to her. My friend is amazing. She chose one of the patterns for me, got together supplies, and shipped it halfway across the world so that I could have a new project and a little piece of home.

I love the little tagline "Happiness is Homemade" on the pickle pattern!

Valentine's Day Heart Brooch {A Tutorial}

As promised, here's the tutorial for making a heart-shaped brooch. Enjoy! And don't forget to enter the giveaway to get one of these premade and for free!

This tutorial does involve sewing. However, if you're not a seamstress, don't worry. You can actually use hot glue throughout for a slightly different brooch.

Supplies

• hand sewing needle with wide eye
• cotton embroidery floss in your choice of color
• felt in your choice of color
• scissors
• heart-shaped template
• hot glue gun (optional)
• metal pin closure

Skills

• very basic sewing skills 
• blanket stitch (check out this tutorial) 

How-To

1) Download heart template here. Note, if you make sure your printer is at 100% this should print to size. For reference, however, just measure from the dip at the top of the heart to the point (the bottom of the heart). It should measure roughly 2 1/4 inches to 2 3/8 inches.

2) Cut out two hearts from the felt. You can double the fabric together and do it at once, but I found the felt was so thick that I ended up with crooked edges, as you can see below. I'd recommend cutting them one at a time.

3) Sew metal pin closure to one heart. Make sure you sew it on correctly. If the heart is right side up and the pin is facing you, you want the opening side to the left. That way, you can easily pin it to your clothing with your right hand. If you're left-handed, then reverse the direction.

4) Blanket stitch the two felt hearts together. I've been planning a blanket stitch tutorial, but haven't been able to get good pictures or a video. It's nearly impossible to photograph yourself sewing! 

For now, check out this You Tube video. If you don't have time to learn, try hot gluing the two pieces together. You won't have the decorative edge, but the hot glue will work just fine. You'd be surprised how much money you've shelled out on cute accessories that were hot glued together! Just use the glue sparingly around the edges, so it doesn't leak out.

5) *Optional Step* Cut out a 1 inch x 1/2 inch rectangle from your felt. Mine is actually just over 1/2 inch wide. The size really depends on the size of your brooch pin. 

Hot glue the piece over the brooch pin as shown below. Spread the hot glue evenly over the felt piece but use lightly so you don't have visible glue.This step stabilizes the pin and covers up the messy stitches. 

If you don't like sewing, you can actually skip sewing the pin on and just do this hot glue step. I prefer having the pin extra secure, however.

Voila! You're done!