From Little Things...

for Knots in the String...

You may have noticed that I frequently mention stitching hearts for 1000hearts

Read the ‘About’ page on their website and you very quickly see from little things big things grow.

I was introduced to it about 4 years ago when a friend of my daughter’s told her about it, and she told me. The idea of volunteering seemed completely compatible with my love of stitching and so I got a template from the website and cut out my first 30.

In a very short space of time, I had a bag which I delivered to the charity for dissemination. Since then, of course, there’s been maybe a thousand hearts or more, delivered here, there and everywhere.

Since the time I joined, 1000 Hearts has become a global phenomenon with people all over the world stitching under the banner of www.1000hearts.com.au and delivering the little pocket hugs to wherever they’re needed.

We don’t volunteer for the charity to gild our own lily. Our reward is the simple knowledge that at some point, someone’s hand will curl around that heart and for a millisecond they will feel warmth and support. They don’t need to know who we are – the very essence of the hearts we make is kindness and compassion. Everyone has dark moments and everyone deserves support.

I love the miniature nature of the hearts, the fact that they are highly portable and can be held discretely during times of high anxiety and emotion. Sometimes I stitch little designs on them, sometimes they are blank. Some people prefer plain or even what’s called Dark Hearts. Our hearts go to hospital wards, help-agencies, palliative care and mental health wards, funeral homes, town councils at times of need, schools, support groups – it seems that there are any number of places and people who just need acknowledgement for their pain. This is a tough world in which we live.

I follow a Facebook page called Hearty Ripplers and the call is often put out for bags of hearts for different purposes and it’s there that one can see really see how big this phenomenon has become. Stitch by stitch by stitch!

Many stitchers get together in groups regularly and it’s heart-warming. Our own group here in Southern Tas is meeting in a coffee shop in a couple of Saturdays’ time. It gives us a chance to socialise with other heartists, have a cuppa, a natter and some cake. And of course, stitch hearts.

If you are reading this and you are a stitcher, and you feel you would like to be involved, can I suggest you have a look at the website and perhaps consider becoming a heartist? It’s one of the most subtle and satisfying things you can do. The raw materials are available via Etsy – details on the website. Or if you prefer to cut your own, there’s a template, and also a PDF for printing off the 1000 Hearts labels that we slip into each little cellophane bag with the heart.

I’m sure you’ll get much quiet joy and gentle satisfaction from the work.

My Time:

Much of this week has been spent in quiet time.

My husband, family and self have been thinking of and about the Royal Family.

What a privilege it’s been to watch history happening in real time as the Accession Proclamations were made and to see the historical Princes’ Vigil at Saint Giles in Edinburgh. Such history, such pageantry, such solemnity.

Walking has been a lovely panacea for the terrier and myself. Beaches, pine woods, sand tracks, streets and footpaths. For the terrier, so much doggy news to which he glues his nose. For me, trees, skies and birds.

Made hearts – meditation for the hands. See above.

Gardened – so much delight from the rocketing spring growth. Tulips especially – aptly coloured in funereal black, blazing orange and optimistic yellow.

Made coffee cookies, an experiment that reminds me for some reason of time in Vienna. I must have eaten a coffee biscuit there with coffee because images of the city immediately spring to mind.

But like many of my friends, I’ve had a few tears every day…

Reading:

On audio, a beautiful book filled with such wordage. The Offing by Benjamin Myers, read by Ralph Ineson . What an astonishing voice! It’s like listening to beach-stones being rolled in and out by tidal surges. It rumbles from the deepest bowels of the earth. It’s filled with the sweat of a working man’s toil. There could not be a better narrator for such a journey of a young man’s emerging maturity. Look out for the book and be patient. It’s a hymn to the English language.

On my Kindle, I’m reading Mary Stewart’s Rose Cottage. I’m barely into it but like The Offing, it’s a book to take one gently through this week.

Watching:

News footage from the UK.

Re-watching documentaries on the Queen’s life.

Nothing more.

Yesterday, it was bitterly cold. I worried for our lambs and wondered how buds and leaves can unfurl when the weather is so unkind. And yet, as we drove home after dropping off our grandson, the purest rainbow arced over our house and much of the surrounds. They say a rainbow is auspicious at certain times.

I’ll go with that.

Take care until next week.

Cheers.