Small Fabric Hearts to Share

DISCLAIMER: The photos in this post are taken from #IFAQH. They are hearts that have already been found. I don’t want anyone to know what the ones I make look like!

In the past few months I found a cool charity project that I want to share with you. Quilters are amazingly generous people. We often hear of people donating quilts to the Ukrainian refugees or to victims of natural disasters. I was recently the recipient of a donation of some USMC uniforms from a fellow Marine Mom to make something special for my son and I feel her love each time I look at those uniforms. I will share that project eventually- it is still in my head working out the bugs.

Anyway, this is a very simple project. People make small hearts out of fabric and leave them in public places where others can find them. It is a way to show a little love and kindness to a stranger.

And the stories are amazing.

I hope you will go to the website www.IFoundAQuiltedHeart.com and learn more about the project if you are interested. They also have a Facebook group that is pretty active and a feed on Instagram. Because I know you might not follow the link. . . here is some information.

There ARE rules.

• Do not hand, give or gift hearts to people. (Hearts need to be “found.”)

• Do not leave hearts on personal or private property, such as a front porch, vehicle, door, bicycle, mailbox, gate, little libraries, etc. (Not public)

• Do not leave hearts in a cluster, like a giving tree. (Not random)

• Do not leave hearts in places that are not public: hotel rooms, work desk, break rooms, office, private retreat, etc. (Not public )

• Do not leave hearts inside any kind of retail store or on retail displays. (Can be mistaken for merchandise.)

• Do not leave hearts in airports. (Homeland security does not approve!)

• Do not leave hearts in National Parks, Wilderness, Forests, Monuments, Bureau of Land Managements, or other Federal Public Lands areas. (Federal Regulation Title 36, 2.22 (a))

• Do not leave hearts in bathrooms, restrooms, washrooms, etc. (Unsanitary)

• Do not leave in places where they may be thrown away by staff. (Super Sad)

You make the fabric heart and embellish it however you want. Then you add a small tag to it that says ONLY:

Don’t add ANY OTHER WORDS and the tag should be plain text. Here is the link to the group’s official printable tags. You can handwrite your tags if you need to, but don’t add words or artwork.

As you know, I am a longarm quilter. I often end up with extra fabric and backing on my frame at the end or on the side of a quilt and I realized that was a great opportunity to make a few hearts. And then I thought that more longarmers could do the same if they had some simple stitching designs that would be quick and easy to stitch out.

So. . . here we are… way outside my comfort zone, but I am going there anyway. I have designed three small heart designs that can be stitched on ANY longarm system that I am giving away FREE. They are not fancy and they are my first public offering of a digital stitch pattern- which is scary! I hope you will go download these and tell your longarming friends to get them as well. Let’s spread the world with tiny fabric hearts. They should stitch at about 4″ x 4″ but feel free to change their sizes.

The designs are totally FREE, but you do have to check out through The Shoppe so that the downloads can be delivered.

There are a few tips I can give you as a longarmer.

• You can fit several designs in a 6″ border type area by flipping every other heart.
• You can have pieced border strips ready to add at the end of a quilt.
• Putting some of the hearts at diagonals totally changes how they look.
• These designs are pretty small- you might want to put your stitch per inch up to about 16 to smooth out the curves- especially on the stipple heart.

If you have any problems with the files (or any successes!) please let me know at ohkayequilting@gmail.com.