Woven Heart Baskets

These gorgeous woven hearts are perfect for gifting little treasures, and they're just the right size for hanging on the Christmas tree. Traditionally made in red and white in Denmark, we decided to try out some different colours and we're really happy with the results!

You will need: Felt sheets, Scrap paper, Pen or Pencil, Ruler, A cup or something circular, approx 6cm in diameter, Scissors, Needle, Thread

1. To create a template for the shapes of felt you need to make your hearts, draw parallel lines that are 12cm long and 6cm apart. Take your cup or circular shape and place it between your lines, so that the ends of them come to the mid-way point of the cup. Use the edge of the cup to draw a semi-circle.

If you're unsure whether you've got the right measurements, the template should be 18cm long between the two highest points of the semi-circles.

2. After you've cut out your template place it on your felt and draw around it to get the shape you need. Each of these shapes will be one half of a heart.

3. Fold your felt shape in half and mark 2cm gaps along the fold line, so that it is divided into 3.

4. Keeping your felt folded, cut straight lines up from the points you've marked to where your parallel lines end. (We also put marks for where we were headed to keep us on track!)

5. Once you have two pieces of felt cut it's time to start weaving!

Up until this point my son kept asking me 'But Mummy, how does it turn into a heart?!'. This is where the magic happens. It's complicated to explain but hopefully these images will help, and there's instruction below as well:

6. Angling your folded pieces of felt so that the ends of the loops are pointing towards each other, take the top loop in your right hand and put it through the top loop in your left hand. Then take the middle loop in your left hand and put it through the top loop in your right hand. Then the top loop in your right hand into the bottom loop in your left hand.

7. Slide the top loop in your right hand up the piece of felt in your left hand, to make space for your next layer of weaving. So now it's top loop in left hand through middle loop in right hand, middle loop in right hand through middle loop in left hand, bottom loop in left hand through middle loop in right hand.

8. To complete your heart slide the piece of felt in your right hand up as far as it will go along the piece in your left hand, and  it's bottom loop in right hand through top loop in left hand, middle loop in left hand through bottom loop in right hand, bottom loop in right hand through bottom loop in left hand.

And there you have it, you have woven a heart basket! If you would like to put a handle on it so that you can hang it up, you can secure a strip of felt with one simple stitch. Our strips were approximately 1.5 x 15 cm.

And now for deciding what to put it in your baskets! Depending on what you want to put in there it may be of benefit to add an extra stitch on the sides to keep things in.

We think these hearts are great for making an Advent garland.

And of course just perfect for hanging on the tree!