Heart Silhouettes

A pattern from:
Vanna's Favorite Gift Afghans
by Vanna White and Susan Frantz Wiles

I fell in love with this pattern because of the heart motif but I now love it for the simplicity of the pattern and the ease of putting it together. I will be working this pattern again and experimenting with different types of yarns.

Here are my details:

Finished size: 51½" x 65"

Hook size: J

Yarn: TLC Cotton Plus (I bought 15 skeins and used 13.5) I loved working with this yarn and I love that it's 51% cotton. Such a different feel then wool or acrylic. I'm hoping the 49% acrylic blend helps the dimensional stability.

I easily memorized the pattern for this but I kept working the last round wrong. I would forget the 2 holes toward the corners (which make the square motifs when the squares were joined. I discovered my errors when I was stitching the motifs together so not only was I having to frog back a round of crocheting but I had to undo the sewing. Remember to watch out for this next time!!

MAJOR PATTERN ADJUSTMENT: I made a VERY important aesthetic pattern correction by changing where the rounds start & end. As written, the pattern rows end and start in the middle of one of the four hearts (you can clearly see this in the picture from the book). I moved the start of rows 2 thru 7 by slip stitching to the corner. From row 8 -11 I didn't slip stitch to the corner but started the row where I was and followed the pattern. It wasn't a difficult adjustment to make and it looks 1000% better.



My Ravelry project page - Heart Silhouettes

Why I blog

I never had the chance to share my love of crochet with my grandmother. She died when I was 11 and that was well before my enthusiasm and passion for the craft emerged. I have a few things she crocheted and I admire the detail, fineness and perfection of her work. I also inherited her crochet books. Her work and the books are the only crocheting memory I have of her.

I wish she had written notes, made comments or kept a diary of her projects. I wish I knew what her favorite things to make were and the problems she had making them. I wish I had known her as a crocheter. So that is why I blog, because maybe someday a daughter, a granddaughter or great-granddaughter will find a passion for crochet or knitting and make a connection to me and my grandmother.

I'm not real keen on pictures of myself and I've finally gotten around to working out an "avatar". I've scanned a motif my grandmother crocheted called Crinoline Lady. It was originally done to decorate a corner on a woman's handkerchief. The pattern is in a book I inherited from her titled Crinoline Lady in Crochet - Book No. 262 - Copyright 1949 by The Spool Cotton Company. Since my user name is ladynthread it is a perfect match.