Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday!  I realized that I don't have really any stitched projects for Valentine's Day, so I am going to make it a goal to begin looking for patterns.  Here is a heart I made over the summer.  In September I went to California to meet my fiance's family.  All summer I kept thinking about what to bring as a little gift.  I ended up buying two little things that are regional to this area to bring in a gift bag, and wanted to make everyone a little heart stitched ornament to include also.  Well, the stitching project was a disaster!!!  The idea I think was a good one, but the execution was terrible. :) I had never, ever done any finishing before, and I went about cutting the linen all wrong.  I didn't have enough of a seam allowance, or the design wasn't centered properly on the linen to make it into the heart shape.  Also, I had only started using a sewing machine about a month before that.  I actually stitched 4 different designs, and ended up throwing away two of them becaue I couldn't fix them.  This is one that survived! lol.  I did learn a lot from the mishaps, and think that in the future I will have more success finishing.  I know one bit of advice I have read multiple times is "measure twice to cut once".  That is certainly true!  I would definitely go about the finishing differently with what I have read about.  I am also a perfectionist to a fault, so that does get in the way quite a bit of the time, and I could see how that trait was getting the better of me in this project.  I am definitely going to try this again for when I go again to meet his family and friends.  Any finishing ideas/suggestions are always welcome on this blog!  Happy Valentine's Day!

Always, ~Jaime