wearing my heart on my sleeve

Literally speaking.  Heart elbow patches on a sweater!  I found this tutorial last month on one of my favorite blogs, and I knew I wanted to recreate it.  But in a different way.  Because you know me.  I'm not much for following rules.  Or tutorials.  Or recipes.  Or instructions.  Or... well, you catch my drift. 

So grab a sweater, some fabric, some thread, and let's get going!  First make a pattern for your elbow patch out of cardboard, card stock, or something similar.  I like a little more of an off-beat heart, so mine is wonky.  On purpose.  And cut her out.

Trace your heart pattern onto your fabric of choice.  I thought red felt would be cute.  And I figured it would get me through the coming seasons all the way to Valentine's Day.  You'll need two hearts of course.  Unless you only have one elbow, in which case I'm sorry if I offended you with my assumptions.

 That's me pretending I traced with my left hand.  I didn't.  I also suggest you don't, either.  Unless you're left handed. 

Cut them out, of course!  Now put on your sweater and make a little "x" where your elbow hits.  Since Brian works late pretty much every night, I had to do this myself AND take the picture. 

You can just barely see my little x's. 

Now center your hearts over each x and pin 'em down.

Pick out a thread color you like, and start stitching.  You could whip these out on a machine, but I decided to torture myself by using a blanket stitch.  I highly recommend AGAINST the blanket stitch because it was a huge pain in the ass.  I kept having to fish the needle out of the sleeve.  A simple embroidery stitch would work just as well.

I also decided to add a miniature heart over a hole in the upper part of the sleeve of my well-worn sweater. It went from this...

To this!

See?  Simple embroidery stitch, and it took no time at all.  But the blanket stitch is pretty cute, too.  Here are the finished elbow patches.  I do like the look of the hand stitch on these. 

I could not for the life of me figure out how to model the finished product AND take my picture, so I used Fletcher.  Who is not the most easy model ever.  You might even call him a diva.  He doesn't get out of bed for less than $10,000.  Or for less than 5 m&ms.  The peanut butter kind.  Sheesh, what a diva!

Can't wait to wear it for date night this weekend!