Tag Archives: pattern

It’s Alene

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After years of piling up handwritten notes about improvised designs, hoping to type them up one day to publish them on ravelry and then loosing all those notes somewhere in the house (probably under piles of yarn)… I have finally managed to create my first pattern and publish it here

I did not quite know how to chose a name for it so I just took the baby name book that I have used when we were choosing names for our children and just looked at the names starting with A. I might go through the alphabet with my future patterns, although this is the method to name hurricanes, isn’t it.

I wrote the pattern in scribus, a free program that I have used before successfully to create mini newspapers but this time the pdf on screen looks actually a bit funny as all the “l” turn out really bold, something I do not remember from my past experience. Once printed out it looks fine though.

Anyway, I hope I will find all those other notes and publish them as well. I have already found so many nice pattern on ravelry that I also want to give something back to this community.

a long, long time ago….

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…. I knitted a cushion cover, wrote down the pattern, lost the pattern, knitted an other one, wrote down the pattern, knitted two more, lost the pattern again, bought matching fabric and zips and got the sewing machine out of its bag.

But then there was never really time to actually sew them together or more urgent things to sew. I can easily knit with children around but the sewing machine with its sharp and fast moving needle is a different matter.

But last weekend I could finally finish them and here they are…..

I have used mercerized cotton, so the knitted part has very clear lines, strong colours and is a bit shiny. Which goes extremely well with a contrasting background. I am really pleased with them. I chose burgundy as a less contrasting colour for the back this time (In the past I usually used the background fabric for the back as well – nice look too)

front and back

front and back

I have done another one as well, with Sirdar Smiley Stripes. It’s a bamboo-wool-blend and is actually very soft. As the yarn is multicoloured in itself, I chose a light blue background as a bold background is rather disturbing in my opinion.

IMG_0912It is knitted in garter stitch diagonally from corner to corner with an eyelet square to break those diagonal lines.

I really like diagonal knitting. It is perfect when you want to avoid the gauge swatching and calculating at the beginning. And I do like the look of it too.

So now that those cushion covers are knitted, I will only have to put them in my etsy-shop and also get those patterns finally typed up and on to ravelry. I guess, it won’t take me longer than a couple of weeks to get that done.

 

 

 

Sleeping like a baby or Do people really like that kind of cushion?

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sleeping beauty

sleeping beauty

Hearing the soft snoring of two snotty noses through the baby monitor just reminded me of the picture I took of my daughter last weekend with the intention to post something about cushions.  After an exhausting day playing with the visiting grandparents she just fell asleep on one of my knitted cushions. This particular one is really soft, I had used Sirdar Snuggly Stripes with 80% bamboo and 20% wool. When I took the picture I thought about “Sleeping like a baby” as a title for a cushion related post but it might be a bit cheesy.

So how about my mother’s comment when she saw me working on a cushion cover and in fact the pattern for it: “Do people really like that kind of cushion?

flowers

flowers

Well, yes some do indeed. But I guess tastes are different. And to be fair, it seems to be a bit of a cultural thing as well and I am  often  overwhelmed by the amount of cushions in some B&B’s or when watching some of those home improvement shows. Can you really increase the value of the house simply by adding cushions? Well, I hope mine have this magic 🙂 I guess I shouldn’t be making fun of cushion obsessed people as after five years in the UK I’ve got apparently infected and I have created a few cushion covers for our couch in the living room as well as for the children’s cosy corner.

I think knitted cushions are actually quite nice gifts as they will most likely really stand out from the cushion crowd and be very special. So a cushion will be very personal but still relatively simple in contrast to a knitted piece of clothing

So far I have been unable to actually produce one with two alike sides. I just like the idea of contrasting sides and being able to turn the cushion depending on my mood.

The first few I made where really simple and it was the self striping yarn which did the trick. But I have to say, as I only used very soft and stretchy garter stitch pieces sewn together, they actually lost shape very quickly. Now I prefer much more to use pieces of contrasting cotton underneath the knitted coat and as back of the cushion. That keeps not only the shape much better, it also enhances the contrast of both sides.

IMG_9806

waves of dropped stitches

IMG_9791

strong contrasts

I’ve seen a similar cushion in a magazine once and I really liked the contrasting colours. This one is knitted from top to bottom rather than starting in one corner which I started doing with the next ones.  It is just easier to adjust the pattern to whatever yarn you want to use and to whatever cushion size you want to knit.

Ok, now I have been talking so much about  cushions, I will have to start knitting another one.