Block a Week Friday

Happy Valentine Day to all you lovely people!

you guessed it of course there just had to be more hearts

There are two heart blocks in the 200 knitted blocks book. This is the first....

Block 17 

Reversed Heart

I tried to be clever with this one, my plan...the garter stitch frame and heart in one colour, and the background in a contrasting shade. I had all my little balls of wool at the ready five in all! and off I went, as you can imagine it started easily enough, but once I had to introduce those little balls of wool it rapidly went downhill! 

I set off determined to succeed carefully twisting the yarn as I changed colours, but when you twist you then need to untwist or you end up with a tangled mess, so you can imagine all the twisting and untwisting that went on with 5 balls of wool!! I got half way through before I gave up, needles and tangled mess thrown down in disgust, it took me quite a while before I could face picking it up, unravelling and starting again with one shade, which is what I should have done in the first place.

Using one shade you will find this block relatively easy, the chart is quite small so I made a note of the rows before I started and although you do need to concentrate it's nice to see the heart forming before your eyes.

Rating -  intermediate 

Curl - 0

Ends - 2

Finished size 6" x 6"

More examples of this block

Jaqueline

Kate

If I wanted to make another reversed heart I would make this one again

I made this for a memory square (you can read about memory squares here) and I think it's much nicer than the one in the book, you can find the pattern here.

The second heart in the book is

Block 56

Big Heart

After reading Wendy's experience of making this block I approached it with caution.  You make it using the intarsia method which is what I tried above.  Luckily I found this one easier BUT I did find getting the correct tension difficult, when you twist the yarn when changing colours at the back, you have to be sure not to twist it too tight or it puckers, too loose and you end up with a hole. I'm not happy with the tension in my competed block but it's acceptable and will look fine with other blocks in a blanket.   I couldn't face pulling it back and starting again!
Once again the chart is small it's much easier to mark the rows down on a scrap of paper.
Rating -  intermediate 

Curl - 3 after blocking - 1

Ends - 6

Finished size 6" x 6"

 More examples of this block

Wendy at September Violets

Appledumpling at Loving Hands

Progress -  number of different blocks made = 10

Numbers -17, 24, 30, 40, 41, 42, 45, 56,  98, 113,

(Click on the number to see the block.)

Number of blocks altogether = 13

Linking with

Have a great weekend!