Free Crochet Pattern and Chart
Are you looking for a crochet heart design that isn’t excessively froo-froo, lacy or fancy? If so, this striped heart pattern is worth checking out. It’s a heart motif that you crochet within a square shape, making it suitable for many different types of projects — from baby blankets to larger afghans to potholders, linens, garments, accessories and more.
I’ve crocheted this pattern bunches of times, in different color combinations. I have yet to get bored with it, and when it comes to crocheting the same thing over and over and over again I do tend to get bored easily. So I feel justified in saying that this is a pretty interesting pattern overall, at least, I find it to be so — and I hope you will too.
Here are a few pics showing various ways that I’ve crocheted this design. First, we’ll start off with one of my favorite colorways — a classic pink design.
If you were just to look at the pink colorway pictured above, you might wrongly conclude that this is a girly-girl sort of pattern after all. So let’s take a look at a couple of boy-friendly color schemes I worked out.
If you like experimenting with lots of different color combinations (I do!) You might even want to try making up this design a bunch of different ways, then pulling your favorites into a baby blanket or throw like the one pictured here:
So if you like any of these project ideas, or if you already have some other project ideas of your own, you’ll probably want the free pattern for this design. Right? Right. OK, here it is:
There are many possible approaches to crocheting this chart. I’ll tell you how I did mine — but my intention is only to inform, rather than to micromanage how you use the chart. You might look at it and be inspired to take it in a whole different direction — and that would be fabulous! I will applaud you either way, whether you pick “my way” or your own way of going about it.
Here’s how I did mine: First of all, I worked in the tapestry crochet technique. Now, even if you want to work in this same technique, there are different approaches to how you could crochet this design.
There are three colors in this design, but only two colors per row. Despite that, I decided to crochet all my squares without ending off and cutting yarns in between each row where the colors weren’t needed. Why? I didn’t think I’d actually save much, if any, yarn by ending off — and I’d also eliminate the need to weave in a big mess of loose ends. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some loose ends to be woven in at the end. In each square, there’s a minimum of 6, and if you do the surface crochet around the edges of the heart motif you’ll probably have at least 2 more for each additional color that you add. Really, though, I don’t think that’s too bad for such a colorful project.
So, that means that after I crocheted my starting chain, I started working the chart from the very beginning by using all 3 yarns — crocheting with my active color and crocheting overtop of the two unused colors until they were needed. When needed, I’d work a color change before completing the last step of the stitch right before the color change, then change colors and drop the old color.
If you aren’t familiar with this technique yet, by now you may be thoroughly confused. I hope not — but if you are, no worries, there’s a tapestry crochet tutorial you can use that will hopefully help you get a better handle on what I’m talking about. Check out the tutorial, then come back and re-read the above to see if it makes more sense. OK? OK.
Each little block on the striped heart chart above represents one single crochet stitch, slightly modified, because each stitch will have two carried yarns sandwiched inside of it.
If you would like your heart to be boldly outlined, like mine is in all the pics above, you’ll want to add some surface crochet slip stitches around the outer edge of the heart. Here’s a free tutorial for how to do that particular surface crochet technique.
So that’s how I did it. There are probably a bazillion different ways you could do it, though.
Another idea: (not pictured) You could crochet an entire solid-colored square of afghan stitch or single crochet, then work the chart in cross stitch on top.
If you want to knit the chart, you could, but the heart will end up looking “squished.” Just a bit of warning there. In this case, the usual trick of doubling every 4th row wouldn’t be ideal, because the striped pattern would get all messed up. Re-charting this design for knitting is on my “to do list” but I haven’t got around to it yet. For now, if you want a knitted heart pattern that’s ready to go, I’d recommend using this one instead.
Finished Size of This Square: This square’s dimensions will change, depending on the crochet hook and yarn you use for working it. For reference, when crocheted with light weight baby yarn (#3 on the Craft Yarn Council’s standard yarn weight system), I ended up with 6.5 inch squares, including the edging. Without the edging, the block measures approximately 6.25 inches.
So there you have it: That’s the free crochet pattern for the striped square with heart design. How will you use it? Feel free to leave us a comment and let us know what you’re doing with it. We’d love to see your work.
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Posted By: Amy Solovay
Page last updated on 11-3-2021. Thanks for visiting!