In 1939 Frida Kahlo painted a canvas that
she named ‘The Two Fridas’. Frida painted it after her divorce from Diego and
it shows one version of herself wearing what appears to be a wedding dress with her heart exposed and open on her chest. The other
version of herself sits opposite with an exposed yet strong heart on her chest. The painting represents suffering
versus strength and resilience.
When I first started working on the design
for this blanket, and was therefore looking at traditional Mexican fabrics and
iconography I came across designs which featured the heart shape all the time.
The sacred heart motif is one of the most common motifs in religious folk art
from Mexico as within the Catholic religion it represents the physical heart of
Jesus as a symbol of his divine love for humanity.
Trying to incorporate a heart shape into
the design presented me with a problem in that the shape of it would mean the
blanket design would have a definite top and lower edge in order that the heart shape sat in the right position. I played with heart shapes a lot, but in the
end I decided it simply didn’t fit within the design, however I then saw that
the shape would work perfectly as a flower petal and set about designing this
piece ‘Heart Rose’.
This is one of my favourite pieces within
the design and once again it starts with those fabulous popcorn stitches made
at the centre of Block 2.
Below I have posted the step by step images for this motif:
On Round 4 you need to work a 'spike dc' (US = spike sc) into the stitch at the base of a stitch made 2 rounds lower down.
Working the spike stitch between the petals gives a lovely heart shaped definition to them.
A frame work is made using Teal on Round 5 - this round becomes the basis of the leaves of the flower. The image below shows the round from the reverse of the piece:
Working out how to make the leaves took me quite a while, but I think they worked really well in the end!
Another framework is made on Round 7 using Sunflower.
The images below show the progress of Round 8 and 9
Using black in a design was a big decision for me as it can make crocheting quite difficult to see, however I felt that the colour was imperative to the design so tried to use it relatively sparingly! On this motif it is used on the 2 final rounds.
I hope you enjoy making this motif - it was one of my favourite to design and I think it will look great in lots of different colour ways.