Sweet heart

1. Draw a heart on the paper with the pencil and cut out. This will be your template. Opening the embroidery hoop on a flat surface, lay the hessian square onto the base hoop and apply the top hoop, tightening once placed.

2. Lay the paper heart in the middle of the hessian and pin if required. Take a long piece of orange embroidery thread and feed it through your needle. Then, starting in the middle dip of the heart, fasten a knot and take the thread across to meet the bottom tip of the heart.

3. Using the paper heart as a guide, continue with a straight stitch, almost like a weave. Work clockwise from the right top of the heart to the left bottom of the heart so the threads start crossing over in the middle. Complete eight or nine stitches on each end and fasten off.

4. Repeating step 3, continue long stitching coloured threads around the edge of the heart, changing your colours every 8 stitches. We spaced the colours in orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and red. Some colours may be more distinctive depending on where they are positioned. 

5. Once you have completed your stitches, remove the hoop. Turn over the hessian and iron interfacing on to the wrong side. This will serve as a backing and cover the knots. Apply the hoop again, trimming the hessian edges, then hang.