valentines day shirt

I haven't been able to read a crochet or knitting pattern in the past. I could only do simple things, squares and rectangles. There have been cute things that I wanted to make and while I could do the stitches and could make something if someone walked me through it, I couldn't read a pattern. When I saw this crochet heart garland from Skip to My Lou, I got motivated. (The original heart pattern is from Suzies Stuff). I googled 'how to read a crochet pattern", and found this crochet basics page. I just flipped back and forth between the two and figured it out. 17 hearts later and I didn't even need the pattern. I did make the garland, but it's not hung up yet. I'll post a picture then.

I was trying to think of other things to use the hearts for and thought about making one out of wool and felting it. It could be a decoration on a felted wool bag. I'm going to be felting some things this weekend, so I'll write about that soon too.

Then I though about putting it on a shirt. The hearts stitch up in just a few minutes and are really sweet. I chose a red shirt from Bee's drawer and using a regular thread and needle, I hand stitched it on. To get it to stay put while sewing, I started in the middle with a few stitches and then went around the outside edge.


I tried three different yarns until I got one that was a good weight to work well on this shirt. The first two were too chunky.

Bee seems happy with it too.
Here's the pattern for the heart (from the above mentioned sources):

Round 1
Chain 4. Make all of the next stitches in the first chain. 3 trc, 3 dc, chain 1, 1 trc, chain 1, 3 dc, 3 trc, chain 2 slip stitch
Round 2
Chain 3, in first trc make sc and hdc, in next stitch 3 hdc, in next stitch 2 hdc, sc in next four stitches, chain 1 (then) dc in (the same) trc (then) chain 1, sc in next four stitches, 2 hdc in next stitch, 3 hdc in next stitch, hdc and sc in next stitch, chain 3 and slip stitch in center
Round 3
Chain 3 , sc in top of chain 3 from previous row , sc in each stitch all the way around (until chain 3 from previous row). At beginning of chain 3 from previous row chain three and slip stitch in center of heart. Pull the loop to the back and fasten off.