diy: felt heart garland

for today's daily make, i wanted to try a heart garland i saw on pinterest. looked pretty easy!  i went to the link here but it was all in another language.  so i wanted to test it out for myself. 

 
here's what you need: felt rectangles, scissors, sewing machine, embroidery thread, embroidery needle

i had a bunch of this heart patterned felt and this is probably the only time of year i'll ever use it. plus it makes it really easy to see my tutorial steps. plain felt would be perfect, as well. (and you won't have to worry about getting the "right side" out.)
 you really only need about 2 sheets of felt.  SUPER CHEAP PROJECT!

cut your felt into 2 rectangles, about 4- 5 inches wide by 11 inches long. (note: i had a giant sheet of felt and didn't use squares. so in my pictures, i have quite a bit more felt than you'll use with sheets.)

 start by putting the right sides together and sewing a straight stitch all the way down the long edge.  then, sew another line about 1 cm away from that edge.  now you should have 2 stitches all the way down.

turn your felt inside out so the right sides are showing. sew a stitch all the way down about 4 inches from the left edge.

 trim on the right side of the sewn line.  be careful to leave a little felt on the side of the stitch so your heart will have a little tail.

 now, cut your hearts to your desired thickness. this reminds me of cutting cinnamon rolls out of a long dough roll!  i got about 6 or 7 hearts- about 1 1/2 inches wide each.

 turn your heart back inside out and trim the the excess.  on my heart, this is in the middle.

 stringing your hearts is a precarious step.  string too high or low and your hearts will flip over and won't stay upright.  i found that if you squish your heart and string your needle through the middle of the two stitches you sewed in the middle of the heart, it won't flip.  but it took restringing my garland a few times to get it right!  you can always snip the knot off the string and slide off the hearts if it doesn't work, so don't fret. 

they look cute when you've got them all squished together on the string!  and, when it's time to store it for next year, just squish them all down and wrap the extra string around it a few times! easy!

 then just hang your garland somewhere and puff out your hearts!  

 love it! easy! 

looks pretty darn cute vertical, too! wouldn't several of these in the window be precious!?!?

looking back- maybe next time i would attempt beads or something else in between the hearts.  and of course, now that i finished my tutorial, i just found a wonderful tutorial on huckleberry love. check it out. 
anyway- happy crafting to you!