Learn something new every day! I wanted to make little crocheted heart pins for the Patreon boxes this time around — for the “Narnia in Love” theme, I’m making them in a mix of silvers and pale purples and pinks, like the quiet beating heart of a winter wood. A little bit of yarn warmth for my patrons!
I found some silky bamboo yarn which is lovely under my fingers (although slightly slippery to work with, so I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners), and I poked around the internet until I found a crochet heart pattern I liked.
The only problem was, it used the magic ring technique to close up the circle at the center, and I have never actually learned the magic ring technique. I almost went on to another pattern — but then I thought, well, I have 15 minutes to spare, let’s give it a go. And it took me 15 minutes to learn it, and I’m going to be slow with it for a while; it feels quite fiddly right now. It took less time to crochet the actual heart!
But I imagine after I make 25 of these little hearts for the Patreon boxes, I’ll be quite practiced at the magic ring, and then I’ll have it in my stash of skills for any future crochet projects that start with a circle, as so many of them do, esp. amigurumi. And hats!
It’s honestly almost worth doing for the sheer fun of the moment between photo one and photo two — those are the same, except that in the second photo, I’ve pulled the tail of the magic ring to tighten up the center circle, and so the heart comes together beautifully. Then it was just a matter of sewing it onto a little pinback, and it’s ready to pop on your favorite sweater, your adorable hat, your bag or backpack, etc. and so on.
You could also skip the pinback and use it as ornamentation elsewhere — make a string of crochet hearts for a Valentine’s Day garland, or glue them onto the front of a card. Adorkable. 
I knit these in DK weight, with a 4.5 (7) hook, though I think it’d be fine with a G or H too. Pattern, including a link to her magic ring tutorial: https://sarahmaker.com/crochet-heart-pattern/
