Free pattern: The Smitten Softspot handmade heart

Ahhhhhhhh. Lurve. Zee mushy stuff of life! You may not be able to buy love (according to The Beatles) but you can knit it! Yes, lovely stalkers, I have another free knitting pattern for you and this one’s allllll about the love. Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Awwwwwww yeah.

The last 12 months has been all kinds of crazy, what with hatching two new books (my first ever) and the rest of the madness. The tragic consequence of this is that many of my crafty deeds have gone unblogged. So sad.

But fear not! I plan to remedy this by squeezing in a bit of retroblogging to give those forgotten purly projects a bit of love. There are quite a few projects to retroblog so we’ll start simply.

I’ll begin by introducing you to the Smitten Softspots…

Hubbub of Hearts - Smitten Softspots

Caaaaaaaaan you feeeeeeeel the loooooooooooove toniiiiiight?

And their fibre-fleshed chums the Eros Brothers…

Hubbub of Hearts - The Eros brothers

Bare-faced love. And pretty much bare everything really...

Those loved up knits were my contribution to Knit the City’s Hubbub of Hearts, which waltzed its woolly way into London’s very busy Piccadilly Circus in February 2011. The plan was to yarnstorm the iconic fountain, smack bang in the middle of the ‘circus’ in broad bloomin’ daylight and attempt one of our craziest yarnstorming feats so far.

Hubbub of Hearts Prep - Deadly Knitshade's Hubbub

For those of you a bit confused by that last sentence here’s some help:

  • Knit the City is my sneaky stitching graffiti knitting band of crafty reprobates. Stalk us at www.knitthecity.com
  • The Hubbub of Hearts was a graffiti knitting installation we did last February 2011.
  • Piccadilly Circus is one of the busiest places in London. It’s the one with all the neon signs and is has a crazy busy crossroads. See?
  • The fountain is topped by a statue of Anteros (Eros’ brother) complete with bow. It’s about 7 metres (that’s nearly 23 feet to you old schoolers) off the ground.

So why the hearts and the knitted nude dudes?

Well, Eros and Anteros were my nod to the fountain’s history. The fountain is actually the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain and was conjured in 1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. Lah dee dah.

They decided to put Anteros at the top of it. Anteros is Eros’s more mature brother. He’s the god of requited love (yay for being loved back!) and also the smiter of those who spurn love (in your face!).

The thing is his bro Eros is much more famous. So everyone just says it’s Eros up there. Poor old Anteros.

Anyway I made them both. Eros is blonde and dreamy, Anteros has brown hair and is rather dashing. He looks a bit like Hugh Grant for some reason. This was unintentional but there it is.

Oh, and they’re my rudest knit ever. Look, they have bumcheeks!

Hubbub of Hearts  - The Eros brothers' bums

I knit cute butts and I cannot lie...

To cut a long yarn short the yarnstorm was a woolly wondrous success. See?

Hubbub of Hearts - Woolly Gods

The Eros brothers look a little shocked to be in the buff in chilly February

Hubbub of Hearts - Hearts and gods

The boys hang with The Fastener's sneaky stitching stuff

And by the miracle of yarnstorming magic I managed to hook the Smitten Softspots, along with hearts made by the rest of the gang, onto the tip of Eros’s bow. The crowd actually went wild, which was nice, and somewhat unexpected since I was so busy concentrating on not flinging our handmade ‘heartstring’ into traffic, that I hadn’t noticed a crowd gather.

Hubbub of Hearts - Have a heart

Your luh-huv is lifting me...

Hubbub of Hearts - The Heartstring

hiiiiiyah, than I've eva bin lift-ehd befooooore

Hubbub of Hearts - Heartstring and Anteros

You know your luh-huv keeeeeps on

Hubbub of Hearts - Anteros and the Heartstring

Liftin' hiiiiyah and hiiiiiiiya (sing it wit' me, babeh!)

So there we had it. Our gift to London for Valentine’s Day was a string of handmade hearts waving in the wind. A thing of handmade heaven, I tell you.

Now Valentine’s Day has rolled around once more and those adorers of all things crafty over at Craft asked me if I had any knits to offer the amorous. Of course I do!

So over at Craft, for your knitting pleasure, is the free knitting pattern to make your very own squishy Smitten Softspot.

Download the Smitten Softspot knitting pattern here

 

 

 

 

Or you can find the pattern on Craft over here.

 

The pattern is easy peasy lemon squeezey and is really quick to knit too. Why you could knit yourself a whole herd of hearts and still have time to prepare yourself for the hot date you have on V day!

What you do with your Smitten Softspot is up to you. I abandoned mine into the wilds of London. They could be loving anyone right now and I’m fine with that.

Hubbub of Hearts - Eros and the Heartstring by night

Lovisin dah air evreh where ah look around, lovisin dah air evreh sight 'n' evreh sound...

Twas The Beatles (again) who said “And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give.” I couldn’t agree more.

Set free the Smitten Softspots, crafty stalkers. You never know what you might get back.

Take it away, boys!

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