Heart Quilts: Quirky and With a Story To Touch Your Own Heart

When I requested "show me your hearts," some quirky needlers took me literally and gave me the most dramatic reproductions of their human, flesh and blood hearts.


Alexandra Walters stepped out of her usual style to create this heart using blackwork embroidery stitches.

I like it!

You might want to check out her knitting blog. Ummm nothing says Valentine's Day like a knitted cap featuring humping deer....

Those knitters, what they don't think of ! 

Nancy Hinds sent me her heart quilt "Have a Heart," which is a touching tribute to the courage of a newborn grandson and that hope and love that surround him. It documents the trials and surgeries of Jackson. Definitely a quilt with a message! And what a story behind it.

Nancy writes: "My grandson, Jackson, was born August 3, 2005, in New Orleans.  He has several birth defects, including half a heart (one atrium and one ventrical), no spleen, transverse stomach, one kidney, two superior vena cavas, and missing several pulmonary veins.   He had his first open heart surgery just 3 days before Hurricane Katrina, and was one of four babies in the PICU at Tulane Med Ctr in downtown New Orleans when the storm hit.

He was evacuated after the storm to Lafayette, LA, which was hit with Hurricane Rita.  He was then moved to Austin TX, but due to his extreme condition had to be transferred to Texas Children's Hospital in Houston for further treatment. 

In his short life he has had three open heart surgeries and three abdominal surgeries.  He is preparing now for the next step in open heart, which will hopefully bring more oxygenated blood to the lower part of his body because his oxygen levels run in the upper 70s.  The doctors will be building a channel that will come out of the lower part of his heart and go under and around his right side to the left upper lobe of his lungs.  (The right upper lobe has not had blood flow for years and is useless.)

This small quilt, Have a Heart, shows the drawing one of his cardiologists made of his heart.   I have beaded a "channel" to represent the surgery he will be having next.  This child is a treasure and has captured the hearts of everyone he comes in contact with.  This was just one small way I found of dealing with his unusual heart issues.  I will always remember what someone told me in the hospital...........after explaining Jackson's condition he said, 'Well, when he falls in love he will just have to say "I can only give you half a heart!'.