Think February. Think Valentine’s. Think hearts. But, we of the heirloom sewing arts know this iconic shape is a too precious to limit its use to a single month of the year. Lace-shaped hearts are a staple to us. Learn how to make a heart with French insertion lace, and you can master any shape, which is why you’ll find a step-by-step tutorial in our French sewing basics section in Sew Beautiful’s twenty-fifth Anniversary Special Edition issue. This rare, seventh issue of SB hits newsstands this month. It’s a must-have for charter subscribers who’ve traveled with us through this sewing journey, as well as for anyone who has just discovered the beauty of heirloom techniques. If you happened to miss our January/February Sew Beautiful, hurry and snap up a back issue. Heart-lovers, especially, will want to check out Crissy Fields’ article on her in-the-hoop, heart appliqué – a clever way to use up bits and pieces of lace and heirloom trimmings. Crissy successfully married heirloom with comfort when she added her pieced heart to an easy-to-wear T-shirt. We work with hearts all year long in all sorts of mediums – appliqué, shaped bias, machine and hand embroidery, silk ribbon work and smocking. Martha’s Antique Cutwork, Circa 1910 embroidery design cd includes three different heart motifs among its twenty-three vintage designs, or if you’re just looking for a sweet, stand-alone, cutwork heart, look for the free download (everyone loves free) at www.marthapullen.com in the Community section. Consider it our Valentine’s gift to you. Here’s a little tip for those of you who love hearts as much as we do. Visit our site (www.sewbeautifulmag.com) click the Shop icon and simply plug the word “hearts” into our online store’s search engine. Voila! Just about everything we have in hearts pops right up. There’s the Glam Rock Hearts and matching pink I-Rock tool to glitz up your projects, the padded Shape N’ Press board with heart-shaping template, Hope Yoder’s Romantic Hearts & Bows embroidery design cd using English cotton netting and reverse appliqué and any number of heart-related books – Stitch with Love, Bake Me I’m Yours Cupcake Love (for those of you, like Martha, who love to cook almost as much as you love to sew) and sure to be any romantic quilter’s favorite, The Civil War Love Letter Quilt. It makes perfect sense for SB and MPC to be brimming with hearts, as we all know that we heirloom sew out of love, whether we’re making something as elaborate as a christening gown or as simple as machine embroidered tea towel. Keeping that in mind, we’ve put together a terrific February kit, which was quite a task considering our January kit sold out in less than a week. We anticipate this one will do the same; it’s our famous “Heirloom Tea Dress,” or rather Judith Dobson’s tea dress, which is now a Sew Beautiful Collection pattern. The kit includes the pattern and traditional heirloom materials and laces just in time for Easter sewing.

Your Easter magazine, in fact, should be showing up any time, if it hasn’t already. Following our second White Issue (January/February), truly an heirloom treasure, we wanted to fill March/April with sweet novelties and pretty pastels. As expected, we’ve included plenty of bunny and chick motifs, but we’ve thrown in a bit of the unexpected, as well. “Pascale,” which is, at last, being reproduced as a Sew Beautiful Collection Pattern, too, is represented in three different ways – one smocked with sunflowers, another in a harmonious combination of pretty prints and trims and the third French sewn to perfection. Wendy Schoen also introduces an Italian quilting technique lending it to an adorable bonnet and coat pattern that might just be a necessity if Easter greets us with a chill in the air. We can almost hear the collective sewing machines across the country coming to life.

Sew on, Sew well, Sew Beautiful

Kathy and Amelia