Introduction: HeartSwap - I Feel What You Feel

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Get two old t-shirts from yourself and your partner, cut out and swap a heart shape.

Step 1: Ingredients

  1. Old shirts from yourself and your partner, preferably to have contrasting colors
  2. Heart shape printed on a thick paper
  3. Sewing machine
  4. Iron
  5. Fabric stabilizer for embroidery (I used Vlieseline H250) - only one side is adhesive.
  6. Scissor
  7. Ball-pen

Step 2: Cutting Shirts

  1. Cut out paper heart shape
  2. With the help of the ruler find the center of the shirt and position the heart on it and draw carefully the contour.
  3. Cut out the heart shape (green in this case) as precise as you can.
  4. Put the green heart on the center of the red shirt, draw, then cut out the red heart shape.

Step 3: Cut Out Fabric Stabilisers

With the help of the same paper heart guide draw by freehand a 2cm bigger heart and cut out 2 fabric stabilizer.

Step 4: Sticking Together

  1. Position the heart on the shirt. Both piece must be with wrong side up! If you mess up (like me) then try to find the ball-pen marks.
  2. Position the heart shaped fabric stabilizer with sticky part down on the shirt and heat glide the iron (read manufacturers instructions)

Step 5: Repeat

Same steps for the other shirt.

Step 6: Zig-zag

Use zig-zag stitch on the join to make it stronger and look better.

As you can see in some places I had 2 mm distance , but the embroidery covered it.

Step 7: I Am Your Half

This is another conjoint idea. Cut both shirts in half and stick, sew together in the same way as the previous ones.

After tying this shirt I wanted my other half back :-/

Alternative ideas:

  • Plan this for the entire family, cut out more hearts and swap between the members
  • You could cut out letters and create anagrams, so both shirts uses the same letters but in different order.
  • Make it social - send/receive letters via post from different friends and create your own words/poems on your shirt.