There are some things that I will always forget until the day or so before: getting wedding anniversary gifts, getting birthday gifts for anyone, getting Valentine’s Day gifts. My poor husband… especially because these are dates that never change!
We Are Knitters sent me this super cute heart pillow to try. Like all their kits, this comes with a beautiful ball of The Wool, 15mm Birchwood knitting needles, the pattern and a sewing needle. I am not sure why I expected it to also include the pillow stuffing, but I imagine that they don't want to be shipping huge amounts of non-yarny fluff everywhere, so be warned: you'll need to source your own.
The pattern is easy to follow to knit the heart shapes, although my stitch height/width tension was a wee bit off so my heart lobe were a tiny bit misshapen. I hadn't thought of this when I started the project, so if you don't normally get the gauge bang on to the pattern, you might need to do some tweaking at this stage to make sure your stitches are the same height as they are wide.
Sewing the two halves together is simple too, but personally I didn't like seaming the garter stitch and couldn't get it to sit nicely and invisibly. After a few attempts, I gave up on the sewing needle and grabbed my trusty 8mm crochet hook, and crocheted the two pieces together. This gave it a visible seam, but I'm going to call it a “design feature” and move on. Bonus: you don't have to measure and cut the yarn to do this, so can crochet directly from the ball of yarn.
I left a hole and attacked an old pillow for stuffing. Dacron or toy stuffing is a great stuffing option, and depending on how many snippets of The Wool you have, you could even stuff it with bits of leftover yarn. Is it weird to “feed” something to itself? Is yarn cannibalism a thing? Contemplate this while you stuff the heart.
I finished crocheting around the heart, and secured the end and threaded it into the pillow. This project had ZERO ends to weave in because they're all hidden inside. Hooray!
Depending on your tension and knitting style, you might have a little blob of yarn leftover. My scraps and snips get bundled up by colour and yarn type and saved for future projects. I might use them for a pompom or to decorate another project with duplicate stitch. They would be great to use for weaving projects too. What do you do with your leftovers?