All heart.

Hearts. Fabric hearts, knitted hearts, felt hearts, paper hearts. Hearts everywhere you go these days. I love the shape, and have used it in embroidery, crochet, tapestry, papier mache, and, as you can see, knitting. I don't normally bother with Christmas presents for friends, preferring to make more of their birthdays, which I see as being more personal to them, but this year I decided to send a knitted heart to a handful of my closest/oldest friends, and these are examples of them. Each one has had a few drops of scented oil added to the filling... I have used a warm-scented honey and vanilla, figuring it would make a change from the usual Christmassy scents. I'm quite pleased with them....

I shall wrap them in pretty tissue, tie with flamboyant silky ribbon and make hand-made gift tags of the luggage label shape, just to make them a bit more special.

But there's no escaping the heart shape.... it is a very popular shape in crafts as most will know, but originally, according to Wikipedia, 'The heart has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral .... core of a human being.' It was widely believed to be 'the seat of the human mind', the word now being used to refer to the soul, the heart symbol representing romantic love, seen most frequently around the time of St Valentine's Day.

There are literally thousands of sayings to do with the heart - a few of my favourites are ...

'Train your head and hands to do, your head and heart to dare'. JOSEPH COTTER

'Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year'. RALPH WALDO EMERSON

'Within your heart, keep one still, small spot where dreams may go'. LOUISE DRISCOLL

And where would poets be without a heart? One of my favourite is 'i carry you in my heart' by e e cummings, which I have included in a past posting so won't repeat here. And of course Mr Wordsworth's heart filled with pleasure and danced with his daffodils.

Wendy Cope wrote a short poem entitled 'Valentine', which begins and ends with the lines ..'My heart has made its mind up, and I'm afraid it's you'. And Christina Rossetti in her poem 'A Birthday' wrote in the first verse of having a heart like 'a singing bird.... an apple tree.... a rainbow shell'.

Musicians and song-writers too, have the heart to thank for success. Where would Billy Ray Cyrus be without his 'Achey, breaky heart'? Bonnie Tyler without her 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'? McFly had 'The heart that never lies', whilst Michael Nyman had 'The heart seeks pleasure first'.

Writers of television series have made good use of the word heart too... HEARTBEAT, WILD AT HEART, WHERE THE HEART IS to name but three. (Actually they are the only three I can think of off the top of my head!)

There are many sayings associated with the heart.... 'Have a heart', having 'a heart of gold', then there's 'your hearts desire'.

Oh, and on a sweet note, who could forget LOVE HEARTS?

So, dear heart(s)... this is my daft little posting about hearts. Enjoy the rest of the week, and your weekend, and thanks for calling by again and leaving your comments.