How to Make a Felt Danish Heart for Valentine's Day

This year I wanted to make something a little special for my valentines so I put my thinking cap on. I’ve always admired Danish Hearts at Christmas time so I thought it would be fun to make some for Valentine’s Day. These pretty felt Danish hearts are perfect for stashing candies, notes and other small gifts for your loved ones.

First of all, just in case you haven’t heard of Danish Hearts before let me give you a little history. It’s an old Scandinavian tradition that children would make these woven heart baskets from paper or felt and hang on the Christmas tree to be filled with goodies. Hans Christen Anderson was one of the first to make these beautiful checkered hearts. I fell in love with them at once and couldn’t wait to give them a try.

Here’s an easy tutorial for you to follow so you can make your own felt danish heart, too. I changed it up a bit and decided to not add a hanger and instead sew them to create more of a small envelope instead of a basket. Check it out!

Materials needed for this project:

Two small pieces of felt in red and white colors
scissors
sewing machine and/or needle
coordinating thread

How to make a felt Danish heart:

First cut out two pieces of felt in a long oval shape like the picture below. Make sure they are the same size and shape. Mine are 9 inches long and 3 inches wide.

Fold the felt pieces in half.

Use the scissors to cut 3 lines in the felt. I layered my felt when I did this to make sure the slits matched up.

Don’t these kinda remind you of the Pac-Man game??? OK, now it’s time to get weaving. This isn’t traditional over and under weaving, so let me show you how to do it.

With the folded ends facing you, slip the first loop of red felt inside the first loop of the white felt.

Next, slip the red loop outside the white loop.

Now let’s repeat what we just did. Slip the red loop inside the white loop, then outside the next white loop. The first row is done! Push it up to the top and then start weaving with the second red loop. For the next row you will start opposite, weaving the red loop outside the white, inside the white, etc. until the row is done. Continue weaving until all rows are complete.

Now you have a pretty woven felt heart.

See how it creates a basket when you open the heart? Since we’re going to fill these with goodies, let’s secure it a bit with some thread to make it more sturdy.

Use the sewing machine or thread and needle to sew around the heart, leaving the top of one side open.

Now you can easily slip in your candies, love note or other goodies for your valentine.

This was an easy project once I got the hand of weaving. You can make them in any colors you wish. Even though I think these are perfect for Valentine’s Day, they are perfect gifts for any time of year. Tell me, what will you fill your Felt Danish Heart with?