FO: My Heart

 

Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves, but I had mine out on my knitting needles a few weeks ago for this quick project.

I've known about the Heart pattern by Kristin Ledgett for years. This is a free pattern on Knitty.com that has been up since 2009. It's an anatomical style heart made in fingering weight yarn and I finally felt inspired to knit this up. The pattern suggests size 1.5 DPNs, but I only had 1 or 2. I decided to go with the size 2 in hopes of getting this a bit bigger, which made the gauge a smidge loose, but I think it turned out fine. I grabbed a skein of Wendy Family Choice 4 Ply yarn that was still sitting out after using it on the heel and whatnot of my Sock Week Socks since it was the right size and didn't require any skein winding and therefor I could just start knitting.

The pattern starts at the bottom point of the heart and grows up into the various ventricles. The body itself is simple to knit and then things get a bit fiddly as you divide several times for the tubes. Thankfully the pattern is written really well, so I had no issues getting the correct shape in the end. The last part you knit is the severed, divided ventricle that wraps through the center and faces outward. Interestingly, you bind off the knitting and leave the tubes open and the pattern suggests you stuff it with red fleece or sew felt over the holes. I wanted this to be durable since it was going to be a gift, so I went the felt route. I stuffed little pieces of red felt in the holes and then used a running stitch with red embroidery floss to sew them in place. It's hard to see in these photos because RED is so hard to photograph like this, but the stitches are visible on the felt and I like the handmade look it gives.

Once the heart is made, the pattern tells you to wrap the ventricles and then stitch them in place. My advice is to not pull the stitching together too tightly or you will end up with divots in your heart, and who wants that? Not me. So if you pull on the ventricles too much, you can see the stitching, but I'm not worried about it. As this will be more of a decorative item anyway, I think it should be fine. After I had the whole heart technically done, I wanted to add some embroidery for veins. I like the more realistic look it gives and yet it also makes it slightly more creepy. I went with just a freehand chain stitch in burgundy and blue embroidery floss. I simply looked at the heart and stitched where I felt it needed something. I made sure the veins were present on all sides, again for a bit more realism. Obviously this isn't a photo-realistic replica, but the sentiment is there.

The end result is a palm sized heart, which worked out perfect for my purposes. I'm honestly thrilled with how this turned out. It's sentimental but also creepy, and that is exactly what I was going for. I'm glad I finally felt like it was time to make this up, and if you need your own anatomical heart, I definitely recommend this pattern.

Need to give your heart to someone?