Noni’s Heart on My Sleeve Purse is embellished with beaded hearts . . .they are beautiful, but took a bit of trial and error before I hit upon the right technique for getting a solidly beaded heart that was a pretty shape.
I rejected a bunch of lop-sided hearts (all of which got undone) before I came up with a plan for beautiful hearts every time.
Find a clean, well-lit place to work, of course: Lay down a piece of clean of paper or other material on your work surface – when beads are involved, sometimes it’s nice to put down a slightly damp towel so if beads go astray they don’t roll everywhere.
Gather Your Materials: No. 8 seed beads, a small dish in which to keep them, a beading needle, nylon beading thread, your almost finished purse, and scissors or thread nippers.
Decide on the Location for a Beaded Heart: If you can’t decide, just pick some place with abandon. Start on the inside of the purse with your double-strand of thread knotted on the end.
First, Outline The Heart with Thread:
As you can see, I used a modified running stitch. A backwards running stitch will also work. I use the outline to guide the beading process.
Second, Outline The Heart with Beads:
You can see above that I have started to follow the thread outline with beads. I go all the way around and then decide how much of the heart to fill in. Sometimes, I only filled in part of the heart.
Others, I filled the hearts completely with beads.
Fill the Heart With Beads:
I have no scientific method for my beading process, only that I keep traveling (like a mole under the surface of the garden) through the felt until I push the tip of the needle up and out of the felted fabric again, put a bead on the needle, and then go back into the felt (rather than all the way through it to the inside of the purse). In this way, I stay working on the outside of the bag, catch a bit of the felt, and out comes the needle somewhere else ready for another bead. I do not feel that I must start at the bottom and fill in from the bottom up or the inside out or the outside in. My only concern is that I stay inside the lines.
Questions? Post them here and I will answer in the comments or add to this blog posting.
The Noni Blog 
Hi, I have a question, on one of your bag patterns you have an abbreviation SSK, the explanation says ‘slip, slip, knit decrease, not sure what that means, can you elaborate please. Thanks so much. Una
Hello,
In this left-leaning decrease, you use the right hand needle to slip the st on the left hand needle as if to knit, then slip the next stitch as if to knit. Either put both sts back on the left hand needle and use the right hand needle to knit them together through the back loop, OR you put the left hand needle in the front of the two slipped sts that are still on the right hand needle and knit them together.
If you are a visual person and need to see this done, here is a good video to watch (this video also offers an simple alternative to the above so you can try whichever method feels best to you): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSjfPTSh_U4
Hello- I love your bags! They are right up my alley for knitting projects, so great! Just a quick question on how the chain is attached to the purse. I love the little chain with the heart lock on it. How does that adhere to the bag? I apologize if it’s covered in a different area of your site and I overlooked it. I will be purchasing quite a few of your patterns in the near future. Thank you!
Hello Kristine,
The chains I sell are attached with lobster claw closures on each end. If I want to have a chain that has a little locket on the end, I use a short chain and open one of the links in the middle of the chain in order to have 2 shorter 1-sided chains. I can attach the chain at one end and then lock the little locket anywhere on the chain.
Thank you for purchasing Noni patterns! I hope you will also take advantage of all of the hardware kits, beautiful felting yarn, and decorative accessories for bags and just about any project you might think of (such as cabochon rivets on fabric bags).