The Greatest of these is Love

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

This bible verse has resonated with me thru-out my life, no matter where my spiritual travels have taken me. The idea that the most important thing that we strive for in life is to live in love.

This is entirely appropriate, since today is Valentines Day, a holiday that celebrates love. Though some folks view it  as a “greeting card” holiday that focuses on romantic love, I like to look at it a bit more broadly.  I have always enjoyed celebrating it as a holiday about love in all it’s forms.

The love for our children. The love of dear friends that lift us up thru life’s challenges. Even the unconditional love of our beloved furry family members. The love that is expressed as compassion and kindness for our fellow humans on life’s journey.

Recently I was talking with a crochet friend about how we crochet love into the projects we make. Whether it is love for the person whom we will be gifting the finished project to, or love and compassion for others when we are making projects for charity. There is even the love of our craft that is crocheted into every stitch as we make something for ourselves or (as is the case for me about 60% of the time) a project sample for work.

The image I used for the Crochet Love picture is the stitch diagram for my very popular heart pattern “Crocheted Love” from 2013. This heart has been popular with other crochet bloggers to build on in their blog tutorials and such. This has led to some interesting interpretations of the pattern.

Today I wanted to show you some quick tips on making these hearts. They only take a little bit of yarn and time to whip up to include on a card or as an embellishment for a gift item to celebrate the holiday of love.

The biggest stumbling blocks seem to be where to work the slip stitch that creates the point at the bottom of the heart and the final slip stitch that anchors the last “bump” at the top of the heart.

This is a close-up of the stitch diagram for the point of the heart. The conventions for showing the orders of operation in diagrams have the arrow pointing under the chain stitch, but you are actually working behind the chain stitch to get to the double crochet just made.

My hook goes under the front loop at the top of the stitch and under the top wrap of the stitch. The lighter weight purple yarn in the photo above shows the path I insert my hook thru.

This image is the hook in place.

Yarn over and pull thru all the loops of yarn, including the working loop on the hook.

Tighten the finished slip stitch.

Make the next 2 dc stitches in the same stitch of Round 1 as before, and continue following the stitch instructions for Round 2.

This is a close-up of the stitch diagram for the end of Round 2.

When you finish the last 7 treble crochet stitches you will need to anchor it with a slip stitch.

Work the ending slip stitch between the final dc stitch and starting chain of Round 1.

Tighten the slip stitch to create a seamless finish to your heart.

As a little extra bonus today I am including the instructions for making a single crochet border around the heart.

You can use this border to give a more finished look to a single heart or to connect 2 hearts together.

For the heart above I cut out a heart shape from heavy card stock, using one of my hearts as a pattern to draw the heart shape. When I cut it out I trimmed the shape a bit smaller to leave room for the border stitches.

I then sandwiched the cardstock heart between the yarn hearts while I crocheted the border. This makes the heart extra sturdy for hanging from a garland.

Instructions for Single Crochet Border

After finishing Round 2 of Crocheted Love Heart – Do Not Fasten Off, chain 1, starting with first Treble of Round 2 – (sc in next st, 2 sc next st) 4 times, sc in next 5 sts, 2 sc next st, ch 1 and slip st in top of last sc made, 2 sc next st, sc next 5 sts, (2 sc next st, sc next st) 4 times, slip st to first sc of round.

After finishing the border you can cut the yarn and weave in the end, or chain to the desired length to use as a hanging cord for the heart.

If you make your 2 hearts with a bulky yarn and appropriate sized hook your hearts will be a generous size and you can insert some stuffing before completing the border to make a sweet little pillow.

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I am going to spend part of my Valentines Day in my traditional celebration of consuming Dove Dark Chocolate hearts. I hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Day and that your life is full of love.