This is a grab-a-cup-of-tea (or coffee) and settle-in kind of post — the sort with lots of photos and a story that unfolds as it goes.

This blanket didn’t begin as a blanket. It began with a handful of hearts…

Somewhere along the way, I realised I was building a small family of heart projects – each one a variation on the same idea, each one carrying its own little story, all eventually culminating in this blanket:  Little Love Notes.

This journey started with three things: a colourful ball of yarn, a practical need to create some adjustable wrist warmers for the boy who keeps stealing mine (even though I keep making him his own), and a fascination with hearts.

Over the last two years, I have collected a staggering number of photos of hearts in the wild. Here is just a selection of them.

Every time I noticed a heart somewhere, I felt as if life itself was sending me a little love note, and it gave me a small, giddy glow of gratitude.

Let’s start with the yarn: The yarn that made me go this needs to be hearts is Yarnsmiths Pebble Haze in the shade 2D350.  What a beautiful rainbow of all my favourite colours!

Next, the problem:  I decided that a heart closure would be the perfect way to make wrist warmers adjustable, since the side of the heart offers a gentle slope, and different buttoning positions can accommodate different wrist widths.

I haven’t published the pattern for these wrist warmers yet because I got completely side-tracked by:

• the Universe in Bloom CAL
• making a blanket out of these hearts
• making a blanket only out of the border (more about that later)
• crochet flowers for the Lucy Wall Bouquet
• testing several million crochet techniques and the gauge they produce (that’s a story for another day)

I will release the pattern once I have worked my way through my ever-growing wish list above.

Now we get to the blanket…

Once I’d made the wrist warmers, I started making many hearts… not knowing how I would turn them into motifs or what I wanted the final blanket to look like. I simply enjoyed chasing the gorgeous slow colour changes.

Once I’d made the hearts, I squared them using Yarnsmiths Pebble Haze in the shade 2C050.

After a lot of experimentation, I settled on a diamond layout (for lack of a better descriptor).

I took this photo when I went to Wool Warehouse to sign the first 100 copies of the Charlotte’s Universe book – mainly because I don’t have enough clear floor space at home, and I wanted to get a feel for what it would look like all joined…

…which quickly turned into a quality control inspection by the future CEOs of Yarnsmiths/Wool Warehouse (cleverly disguised as play-pretending to be on a life raft).  Thank you, Betty and Sky, for such a special day (light-up crown and all).

And on that note, Buddy also approves of the design – his quality control process does, however, leave a little to be desired.

Once I’d joined all the squares, I started playing with borders and finally landed on one that completely stole my heart: a border made from even more tiny hearts.

When I started the border, I realised just how many small hearts I was about to crochet. To make the repetition more joyful, I began thinking of someone in my life with each heart I made, letting one name flow into the next.

Each heart became a little love note.

And the last one… was for me.

And then I got so engrossed in the border hearts that they grew into their own design: a blanket made entirely from the repeating border.

I adore it.  It uses the same colours as the Little Love Notes blanket, but has a very different feel.

I cannot wait to share that version with you later!

Although this is the first time many of you will see or hear about this pattern (or this family of patterns, really), it has been an 18-month love affair… and it is not over yet!

This design has accompanied me on many rugby Sundays, and it travelled with me when I met up with my brother in Germany, where we found the perfect wall art for it (I have a thing about wall art/graffiti):

And a version of it even made it to South Africa with me over Christmas – although, truth be told, I was having so much fun that it never left my suitcase!

I will be releasing the pattern for the Little Love Notes blanket next week on the first of April (no April Fool’s jokes, I promise). Yarn kits will be available from my Wool Warehouse shop and will include all the yarn you need to make your own Little Love Notes blanket, as well as a printed copy of the pattern. The pattern will also be available on my website, with video support from yours truly.

I hope you will join me.

P.S. The joy I get from using this yarn is such that I have already started another project with it. I have no idea where it is going. Well… I have some idea.

Watch this space (but don’t hold your breath).

This blog post contains affiliate links. I only link to products I personally use or would use.  All opinions are my own.