Hanging Heart Knitting Pattern

Remember the Valentine's Day heart bombing project that I did last week in association with One Sheepish Girl's heart bombing day?  I wrote up the pattern for my little hanging heart today.

Materials used in this pattern:
1.  Two contrasting colors of medium weight yarn (I used Loops & Threads Charisma Baby yarn in yellow and Loops & Threads Charisma yarn in white.)
2.  US Size 8 knitting needles
3.  Stuffing
3.  Scissors
4.  Tapestry needle

Abbreviations used in this pattern:
kfb:  An increase stitch involving knitting the front and the back of a single stitch to create 2 stitches.
k2tog:  A decrease stitch involving knitting two stitches together to form a single stitch.
k2tog(tbl):  Inserting the needle through the back of the loops of 2 stitches to perform a k2tog decrease stitch.

Pattern:
Row 1:  cast on 2 stitches
Row 2:  kfb, kfb
Row 3:  purl 4
Row 4:  kfb, knit 2, kfb
Row 5:  purl 6
Row 6:  kfb, knit 4, kfb

You have now created the top left hump of your heart.  Cut the yarn so that your knitting is no longer attached to your skein of yarn, leaving a long enough tail to weave in later.

Push the existing knitting down the needle, saving it for later.

Repeat rows 1 through 6 again, starting by casting onto the empty needle as pictured below.

Now you should have both humps for the top of your heart on one needle.  Push them together and knit the rest of the pattern as if it were all one piece.

Row 7:  purl 16
Row 8:  knit 16
Row 9:  purl 16
Row 10:  k2tog, knit 12, k2tog(tbl)
Row 11:  purl 14
Row 12:  k2tog, knit 10, k2tog(tbl)
Row 13:  purl 12
Row 14:  k2tog, knit 8, k2tog(tbl)
Row 15:  purl 10
Row 16:  k2tog, knit 6, k2tog(tbl)
Row 17:  purl 8
Row 18:  k2tog, knit 4, k2tog(tbl)
Row 19:  purl 6
Row 20:  k2tog, knit 2, k2tog(tbl)
Row 21:  purl 4
Row 22:  k2tog, k2tog(tbl)
Row 23:  bind off purlwise

Now repeat the pattern again to make a second heart, and weave in all the ends on both hearts.

Stack the 2 hearts on top of each other with the knit side of both hearts facing out so that they are mirror images of each other.  Use your tapestry needle and your contrasting yarn color (I used white) to sew the two hearts together to form one heart.  As you do this, purely for aesthetic reasons, try to keep your sewing one stitch away from the edge of the heart as apposed to sewing right along the actual edges.  When you have almost sewn all the way around the heart, push a small amount of stuffing between the two sides of the heart; this will make the finished product a little puffier and more 3-dimensional.

Once you've added the stuffing, finish sewing all the way around the heart and then make a big loop to hang it from and tie a knot.  Cut off the excess yarn and you're all finished.

Happy knitting!
xoxo
Laura

p.s.  I just subscribed to Gathered by Mollie Makes, which is a cute little iPad magazine.  As I was perusing some back issues, I came across a pattern for a garter stitch heart coaster in issue #16 that's really cute, so if you like this pattern you might want to check that one out as well.

Embroidery Floss-Wrapped Soap Dispenser

Hello Internet-Friends!

Check out my latest creation:

I fully understand that this project may seem a little superfluous, but in my world it is not.  In my world, I am looking for a silver lining to my very least favorite household chore which is washing dishes.  On top of it being my least favorite chore, I am also currently living in an apartment complex with all the original decorative stylings of the 1970s, so I get to do the dishes in the monstrosity pictured below.

I love my job and I love that they provide me with a place to live, but my HGTV watching, pinterest pinning heart cries out just a little bit more every time I walk across the speckled linoleum floor and fill up that brown sink with soapy water.

Our apartment may be living in the past, but we are members of the Costco cardholding present day.  Because of that, we have a jumbo-sized jug of dish soap under our sink that Justin cleverly decided to pour into a smaller hand-soap dispenser that we had used up.  That little dispenser was already my favorite part of doing dishes because I get a kick out of the way it squirts the soap onto the dishes when I pound the lever with my fist.  (It's the little things, right?)  So this week I decided to decorate it in bright, soapy colors.

Here's how I did it:

1. Pick out 2 colors of embroidery floss.


2. Paint a stripe of mod podge or other craft glue up the side of the soap dispenser so that the floss will have something to help hold it in place while you're wrapping it around the bottle.  I used an old bobby pin as a brush, but by all means use a real paintbrush if you have one handy.


3. Begin wrapping the floss around and around the bottle, trying not to leave gaps between the thread.


4. Once you've made a large enough yellow stripe on the bottom, glue the end of the orange floss in the spot where you left off with the yellow and wrap the orange almost all the way up to the top of the bottle.


5. Switch back to yellow for the very top of the bottle.


6. Once you've wrapped the entire thing, coat all of the embroidery floss in a thin layer of mod podge so that the floss will never fall off.  Let it dry for a couple of hours and you're finished!

Now I smile just a little bit every time I add more soap to the dishes, and isn't that the whole point of crafty DIY projects?  To make you smile?  I hope that all of the projects I post on this blog continue to brighten my world in small ways, and I hope that one or two of them might brighten yours as well.

Happy scrubbing!
xoxo
Laura