A Cute Valentine

I must preface this post by saying that I obviously have more time than sense. Read on ...


The librarian at the kids' school gave me this adorable idea for a cute valentine. Thought I'd share it with anyone who's interested.
Free hand sketch a simple sweater. I started out with a 3 inch by 3 inch square for the body of the sweater, then added the arms and tapered the neck in just about a quarter of an inch on each side. Then sketch a heart (or some other valentine symbol if you prefer) in the center of the sweater.

Cut out the sweater, but leave the heart intact for now.

Pin the paper sweater to two (2) pieces of felt and cut out.

You now have two identical felt sweater pieces.

Cut out the heart and pin it to a contrasting color of felt. Cut out.

Place the heart in the center one (1) of your sweater pieces.

Whip-stitch it in place with 2 strands of embroidery floss.

Once the heart is stitched in place, put the other sweater piece behind the piece with the heart. Blanket-stitch (or whip-stitch if you prefer) the two layers together, starting at the lefthand side of the neck opening and ending at the righthand side of the neck opening. **Leave the neck open!!

Now you're ready to stuff your sweater full of Valentine's Day treats. My kids decided on 1 Hug, 1 Kiss, and 1 mini Fruit Roll-Up or mini Fruit by the Foot.

I used several different colors of felt for the hearts with coordinated embroidery flosses. I also used varigated floss which turned out very cute. Another cute variation would be to use red felt for the sweater and white for the heart, etc.

I happened to have a bunch of white-ish felt and less of the red, purple, pink felt, so I went this direction instead.

Now to the comment about having more time than sense ... I actually made 61 of these little babies so each of my kids could give them to each of their classmates, plus a few extra for special friends and neighbors. It was a fun/time consuming project -- but because I already had all the felt and floss I only had to spend a little money on candy and -- VOILA -- not-so-instant but very cheap Valentines!!!

My six-year old, Kate, had a great idea. She suggested making the sweater pattern a little larger and then attaching a ribbon handle to it so she and her friends could use them as purses. I haven't tried it yet, but I LOVE the idea.

I'm sure you could use many different types of fabric, but I like felt since it's cheap, sturdy, forgiving, and requires no finishing on the edges. If you didn't want to stitch a heart in the center you could just use fabric paint to write a special, personalized message.

Hope you enjoy the idea. :)