Hearts are associated with love, but why? For me, loving someone has always been associated with thinking about that person non-stop, so I think that the brain has a good case to argue for being the symbol of love, but the heart has won out on that one, and that’s probably better for Valentine’s Day card designers everywhere.
And, according to my Google AI search result, there are tens of thousands of songs that use the phrase “broken heart,” and there’s even a medical condition called Broken Heart Syndrome that can happen from the sadness of losing a loved one.
But how did the heart shape come to represent the heart? Seeing a diagram of a heart or even worse, a dissected heart, does not bring to mind the cute little red heart emoji. One explanation comes from ancient Greece. The silphium plant was believed to be an aphrodisiac as well as a contraceptive, and it’s seedpods were heart-shaped. The truth is that no one really knows how the heart shape came to represent love but that is as good a guess as any.
For me, crochet fulfills my love of making things, and I love all of the different stitches that you can use to make shapes like tulips, flowers, and yes, even hearts. I was hooked (pun intended) on all of the heart stitch blankets that I saw on Instagram in rainbow colors, and I wanted to design something unique using the stitch.
So I decided, why not double the love by using the heart stitch to make a huge heart design, and the Big Heart Blanket Pattern was born. If you would like to crochet the blanket for someone you love, the pattern can be found on Ravelry. And if you are like me and think that weaving in ends is the worst part of crochet, have no fear, this pattern uses an envelope border to hide the knotted ends at the end of the rows. If you are curious how that works, there’s also a video on the DaisyGardenCrochet YouTube Channel with a tutorial on how to make an envelope border.
Sting sings that if you love someone, you should set them free, but before you do, crochet them a Big Heart Blanket. ❤️
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