For my first assignment in ENGI210, I was tasked with producing a small fabric heart pillow. This is my first time ever hand sewing, and I’m happy with how it turned out given my limited experience!
First, I cut out the heart template, traced it with a fabric crayon over a piece of maroon fabric folded over once to produce two identical hearts, and pinned them together with two pins to avoid slippage. I used a whip stitch to bring the two heart pieces together. When I had about an inch of open seam remaining, I turned the heart inside out and stuffed it with cotton stuffing. After finishing the whip stitch to close the seam, I remained unsatisfied with the result. It was a little lumpy and misshapen and the stitch was not neat enough for my tastes. Therefore, I decided to use the thicker embroidery thread to embellish the stitch, stretch the fabric into a better shape. and allow myself to reach a higher level of consistency. The following is the result, and what I turned in!
The final result.
Although the stuffing is still a little uneven and the stitching isn’t perfect, I’m very happy with the result given my zero experience and I believe that it says something more meaningful: No two hearts are the same, fabric or real. Their imperfections are what make them unique and valuable.
COST BREAKDOWN
Raw Materials:
Fabric equivalent – $4.99 for 1 yard of 60″ fabric, = ~$1 assuming 7-8″ of fabric used and the rest used as scrap. 50-25c if the remainder of the strip could be repurposed by other students.
Cotton batting – $15 for 45″ x 60″ cotton quilt batting, = ~$2.50 if the remainder of the batting could be repurposed by other students.
Thread – ~62c/200yd spool of sewing thread + ~$1-2/spool of embroidery yarn = ~$2, ~10c if the remainder of the spools could be repurposed by other students.
Labor: 2h at OEDK at ~$10/hour for average on-campus employment = $20.
Tools:
Scissors – $8 shared among hundreds of students over several years, ~10c.
Needle – Shared among hundreds of students over several years, ~1c on average.
Total: $23.21
I’m looking forward to using my new sewing skills to fix my backpack in the future!
Table before and after:
Table before
Table after: James’ heart is in the top corner, my section is clean!
