I ♥ photobooks. I heart them even more if they’re full of hearts and include one of my own photos!

There it is, on the left. However, lest you think that I would use the word ‘located’ anywhere but in a geography report, I feel compelled to include my original, grammatically ambiguous caption:

‘My boyfriend spotted this mossy heart on the doorstep, and I took a photo of it with his camera, coupled with my lens. Our heart is in the beautiful Welsh countryside, green & growing.’

‘Focus: Love’ (Amazon UK | Amazon US) is a collection of heart-photos from online amateur photographers. It’s a really exciting book; you can see the spontaneity, the meticulous observation & the abundant enthusiasm of all the artists. The variety of colours, themes and styles is wonderful too; you might otherwise imagine a book full of lovehearts would get boring fast, but I found myself smiling as I flicked through. The heart is such an enduring symbol, I’m happy to embrace it. I often do, in fact…

Looking through heart photos reminded me of a long-forgotten project. I knit this illusion scarf when I was so new to knitting that the thought that stocking stitch curls incurably didn’t even enter my mind. I was still trying to work out how ‘right-side’ and ‘wrong-side’ worked (thank goodness there’s no ‘off-side’ in knitting). Illusion (or shadow) knitting is a very neat technique, and I love the colours I chose, but I’m surprised this didn’t turn into a disillusion scarf instead, and put me off knitting forever. Happily, it didn’t, and I still ♥ knitting. A lot. :)