DIY wire and lace heart

A few days ago I saw a beautiful tutorial of a wire and lace heart by Miri of Miris Rosenhuegel (scroll down on her blog page for the heart tutorial).

I loved the wire and lace hearts she created but the tutorial is in German (which doesn't have to be a problem though) and I wanted an easier way to create a similar effect plus I wanted to add lace in the middle too. So I decided to make my own DIY.

So here it is, my wire and lace heart DIY.

For the description, scroll down please.

Materials needed:

Wire (I used iron wire), length depending on how big you want your heart to be
Broderie Anglaise or lace ribbon - one and a half times longer than your wire
Lace fabric (optional)
Ribbon or twine for the loop to hang your heart
Scissors
Sewing machine (you could stitch it by hand if you don't have a machine)
Needle and thread
Round nose pliers
Pins

1. Make a heart shape with wire, starting and ending in the top center of the heart

2. From the broderie anglaise you're going to make a tunnel for the wire

by folding it in the length. Put pins in to secure.

3. Sew the broderie anglaise as seen above, making your tunnel.

4. On one of the ends of the wire make a little loop with the pliers.

This loop will help the broderie to stay in place.

5. Push the wire gently through the tunnel.

6. When completely through, take the second end of the wire,

get it trough the loop of the first end

and make another loop with the second end to attach both ends.

7. Spread the broderie anglaise evenly along the wire

and push the end loops of the wire into the ends of the fabric.

Just a little, enough to hide them.

8. On the side of the heart that will be the back,

gather the broderie and stitch it so that it will form a point.

I used a darker thread to show on the photo. And my stitching is not the neatest :)

Just gather and stitch as you please. It will also secure both ends even further.

9. Attach a ribbon to the top center of the heart.

And sew by hand some lace fabric on the back.

Cut off the excess lace fabric when done.

(I'm sorry, I forgot to take a photo of it.)

10. Finished!

***

Of course you could leave out the lace in the middle of the heart.

You will get something like this:

And I have been thinking, it would be nice to add an embellishment or charm or whatever. You could use the curls you made to attache something like that.

I'm linking up this week at

Roses of Inspiration

Enjoy!

Wishing you a beautiful day,

xx Wen