To make your house warmed, you need pleasantly plump pillows, don’t you think?
I’ve always loved this quilt block, just an arrangement of HSTs. (I actually couldn’t find a name for this block—anyone know?) It’s funny how different it looks in a pillow, though, once the pillow is stuffed—more round, less sharp. I quite like the effect. The pillows are fraternal twins in more than one way: I split each HST up so that there is one in each pillow, just arranged differently (except for that center orange! oops!), and I used the same fabric in different colorways to back them.
I love the assortment of colors—on the pillows and on my friend’s couch. Many of those fabrics are beloved, as I’ve used them in many projects over time. They’re stuffed and seamed shut (rather than pocket pillowcases), using stuffing from small Ikea pillows that were about the same size. They’re modest, at just about 12″ square. My friend says that a friend of hers was hugging a pillow while they talked over some rough times, and she said the pillow had good energy. I couldn’t ask for a better compliment.
I’m an experienced knitter, not afraid of any technique, from steeking to intarsia. But I’d never entrelaced. Which is weird, because I’m friends with Rosemary Drysdale, the expert on the subject. And her newest book features a round swatch of entrelac that was, I thought, crying out to be made into a nice round pillow. Back at TNNA in June, I was given a few skeins of the new yarn Mrs. Crosby Carpet Bag, and I decided it was just the thing for my round pillow, so I cast on and got going.
I found that entrelac is super easy, but to get it to look really nice you have to be just a touch fussy, picking up sometimes more stitches than you need to ensure all holes are closed. I learned when you work in the round if you accidentally miss one segment you are screwed and have to frog days and days of work. And I also discovered that you can’t just keep sizing up, or you’ll end up with a rippling mess.
This shouldn’t have surprised me: you can’t make a circle by doubling each round and expect it to stay flat. But I for some reason didn’t anticipate quite this much rippling—I figured I could wrestle it into a pillow with enough stuffing. But this was untenable, and it had to be abandoned.
Instead, I went with a basic entrelac, only I wasn’t satisfied with the successive rows of color that is standard. If the point, I figured, of entrelac was to make it look as if the bands were woven together, then the color should stay with the band, not the row. So I devised a color plan that would actually show the colors interlacing.
I had a really hard time trying to draw this, also I wanted to be able to test different sequences, so I actually cut strips of paper and wove them together!
Just a few rows of entrelac high—I was excited for a low, wide pillow. I changed the color scheme for the second side slightly. Seaming them together posed a stumbling block, as joining the bias edges didn’t look neat no matter what I tried. In the end I did a round of hdc on each piece and the joined them with a flat crochet join. I don’t mind the gray “seam” that runs around the whole thing.
Then I started stuffing it. And stuffing it. And stuffing it. The yarn, a merino-silk blend, is soo lustrous and soft, but it is supple and took to a lot of stretching, and I was definitely not feeling up to sewing a small inner pillow out of fabric to contain it. So I just stuffed until it was nice and full, and in the end I got a significantly sized bolster! (I think it’s at least 2 feet long.) It lives on the couch and is so delightfully squishy and nice to curl up with. Sometimes I use it as an actual bolster, using it as a prop for some gentle yoga on the floor while watching TV. I love it!
For Christmas last year (wow I’m late blogging this), I made my friend Beth a pillow in all her favorite colors: pink, more pink, and some purple too.
I did it as a quilt-as-you-go using narrow strips of some of my favorite fabrics. A QAYG log cabin is easy enough except if it gets slightly off kilter, there’s no squaring it up! So this spirals every so slightly. I just squared it at the end and called it a day.
I closed the backing (Kona Berry) up entirely and stuffed that sucker really full so that it would be a super comfy addition to her bedroom–perfect for propping yourself up to read a book or watch something on a tablet.
Last year I made my awesome tree skirt. This year, I decided I wanted all the Christmas fabric out of the apartment, so I set about using it up. Those were lofty intentions (aren’t they always?), and of course I didn’t actually use up all the fabric in the end, but I made a significant dent! One major investment of fabric was in this pillow. I didn’t mean to deliberately mimic the tree skirt with the triangles, but the matchiness doesn’t matter, because this pillow was not destined to live in our house; I gave it to my mom for Christmas. I forgot to take a shot of the back but I did it in solid green with a single strip of some of the green with snowflakes. It looks like it’s a pocket pillowcase but it’s not—I seamed the entire thing shut after stuffing it with fiberfill. (A sewing teacher once told us that when stuffing a pillow, you should stuff it as much as you think is super stuffed… and then add more stuffing. I’m a strong adherent to this policy when I’m not using a pillow form!)
What I learned in making this is that sewing equilateral triangles takes more precision than I’m really interested in maintaining for an entire project! I knew this after making Meaghan & Josh’s quilt, but I guess I forgot or I decided that I like the look enough that it wouldn’t be an issue. But it was. Oh, it was. I was so frustrated, and that is why there is that large white border around the piecing! I love the look so much though,and it takes so well to simple quilting lines. You know I’ll selectively forget this in the coming year and end up sewing more equilateral triangles. Because damn they look cool!
Back in 2012 I declared 2013 the year of sewing clothing. I failed! I sewed 3 garments, all with quilting cotton so they’re not particularly stellar examples of handmade clothing. Even though I didn’t actually accomplish much in this area, I started subscribing to garment sewing blogs by the dozens, learning a lot about construction, fit, and even fabric choices. I started purchasing fabric with garments in mind, and I feel comfortable that 2014 is going to have some clothing!
Here are highlights from the year, and it’s definitely not everything that I made. Several here need blog posts still, a few still need photo shoots! And I have a few knits that I know I photographed but I have searched everywhere and cannot find the shots, so I’ll have to do new photo shoots for those.
I’m excited to report that after a consultation with a hand surgeon (who wrote this awesome book with his wife (affiliate link)) and some exercises with this (the red one), my hands have been in much better shape! If I were actually diligent about doing the exercises I think I could be actually cured by now. Instead it’s taking a bit longer to get back to 100%, but I can knit again! I actually bought a sweater’s quantity of yarn at Rhinebeck so hopefully I’ll feel ready to get started on that soon, plus finish up all the WIPs that have languished while I was on the DL.
So here’s to healthy hands and even more creating with them this year, and for many years to come.
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