Op Art Heart

Optical illusions intrigue me...even the simplest ones done with line drawings.  These are the kind of things we did in grade school art class, with straight lines framing a shape, and the lines curving upwards within that shape. Anything we can draw, we can also stitch!  At Hallowe'en, I did a severed hand.  In person, it really does look like the hand is raised up off the fabric.

With Valentine's Day almost here, I decided to try a heart.  I drew the shape and then added straight lines, spaced about 3/8" apart.  The fabric is a scrap of Island Batik almond, which has a pinking/purplish marl of colour through it.  I then layered it with batting and backing and pin basted the layers.

In the needle, I used Aurifil 12 weight cotton, (2265 Lobster Red) and a size 16/100 Topstitch needle.  My bobbin is loaded with regular 50 weight Aurifil, and my machine is set up for free motion stitching. 

Ideally, I should have used a ruler/ruler foot, but this was more of a "let's try and see if this will work" project, so I wasn't terribly concerned as to whether my lines were perfectly straight.

I don't think the effect is as pronounced as with the stark black thread on pure white used in the hand, but you can see that the heart does stand out from the background.

I decided to cut this into a mug mat size (although that's clearly not a mug pictured...)

It took about 20 minutes to stitch, so it was a quick and fun project and may just end up in a Valentine's basket of treats.