For this homework, I made a hand-sewn denim felt heart. This was my first time hand sewing outside of our in-class activity, so it was slightly intimidating but simultaneously pretty exciting.
I started by creating a heart template by folding a sheet of paper in half and drawing out half of a heart shape. I then cut out the half-heart and unfolded it to yield a symmetrical heart template.
I then laid my template over a piece of two pieces of denim felt fabric and tried my best to use a marking pen to outline the heart shape. However, the marking pen wasn’t showing up very well on the fabric, so I ended up somewhat guesstimating where the heart was based on a very faint white trace.
I proceeded to cut out the heart shapes from the fabric. They were pretty symmetrical, so I didn’t trim them further.
I decided to use a blanket stitch to sew the two pieces of fabric together because I liked the aesthetic of it. However, I had never attempted a blanket stitch before, so I first searched up a YouTube tutorial and practiced on a spare piece of fabric.
After becoming more confident with blanket stitching, I began to sew the two heart-shaped fabrics together. At first, it was very difficult to keep the spacing between stitches and the size of the seam consistent throughout the heart, but I got better at it as I continued to sew around the heart.
When about 1.5-2 inches were left open, I stuffed the heart with polyester fiberfill.
I then sewed together the rest of the heart and tied a knot at the end. However, the knot ended up coming a bit loose, so I secured it further with a bit of hot glue. This yielded the final product! I’m pretty satisfied with it, but I could still improve consistency in seam length, increase the tightness of each stitch, and also learn how to tie more sturdy knots.
- 1/2 of a 9×12 piece of denim-look felt fabric: $1.12
- 1 oz of polyester fiberfill (1/16 of 16oz bag): $0.37
- 1 yard of embroidery thread (1/600 of 600 yd spool): ~0 ($0.003)
- 1 hour of my time at a rate of $1o/hr (low end of wage for embroiderer in Houston)
- 1 embroidery needle (1/6 of 6-pack): $0.26
- 2 sewing pins (1/15 of 30-pack): $0.07
- 1 pair of fabric scissors: $17.43
Thus, the total cost to produce my denim felt heart is $29.25. Of course, some items such as fabric scissors could be repeatedly used in the future, which means the cost of future production beyond the first item would be much lower. Everything else was calculated precisely according to how much was directly used to create this item, but realistically, someone trying to reproduce this heart starting with no materials would have to buy whole packs instead of individual units.
