Cable Cushion Success From Knits At Home!

Thankyou so much for your latest update Jane Parker! I feel like a proud mother hen!

See what wondrous goodies Janes been making with help from my book Knits At Home/ The Knitted Home..........

 

The cushion above is one she has developed with the help of the section in the book that explains how to design your  own cushion with cables and the floor cushions below use the more general 'how to work out your own pattern' guidance- arent they all gorgeous- and I'm totally jealous of your beautiful house too!!!!

 

Janes Letter about the above......

Hi Ruth, 

How are you?

I forgot to take a photograph of the second finished cushion cover I knitted before mailing it overseas to my Mother in England. I did however take this photograph of it before it was sewn up and finished with steam.
It is just 'wrapped' around one of my other cushions to give the effect of it being finished. I am really pleased with how it turned out and already feel more comfortable sketching out and making up patterns. - It also didn't take too long (thankfully) to figure out what would still look good but be less complicated to knit. i.e. making sure that all my purl lines were straightforward and I could quickly knit them up without too much concentration !

I also wanted to show you a couple of my other projects.
These were inspired by the sea urchin style floor cushions I see in many of the Homes and Interiors magazines.
Again, I don't like the idea of simply copying other people's work but I wanted to see if I could figure out how to make them.

The larger one is made with 12 strands of yarn which I had to crochet into a chain link before putting it into the washing machine on a hot wash a few times to felt the wool together into a thick woollen rope.
Then I knitted it up (trial and error with the pattern) on giant needles that I made myself by transforming two 4cm thick dowelling rods purchased from my local hardware store.
With the amount of wool, hot water and hard work involved (I had to kneel on the floor to knit because everything was on such a large scale), I think it will be a while before I make another.

I am currently working on the chair pad cover you have in your book and am happy with how it is turning out.
The only thing is; I feel the need to be more original, so as I'm knitting away I can't stop trying to thing of my next project !!!

As always, thanks for everything.
Regards,

The Knitted Home- Cabled Bolster Cushion Success!

So this morning I found a lovely email from Jane who bought The Knitted Home and has not only created her own version of the cabled bolster cushion but is spinning her own yarn and will be adapting more patterns for her own yarn- Go Jane! This is exactly what I hoped people would be able to do with the book- Huzzah!

Hi Ruth,

Well this is my first attempt at a cushion inspired by yours.

I tried to just look at the designs you had created in your book to figure out what you must have done to achieve each cable effect as I didn’t want to simply ‘copy’ your pattern if I could help it.

This cushion was knitted with hand spun wool I had purchased from a lady who was retiring from her homespun wool business. (I was too impatient to start right away and didn’t have enough of my own yarn spun ready to start that quickly) !
I have ‘found’ some off white Merino wool that I had forgotten I had so that will be cushion # 2 with perhaps a few modifications to my initial design.

I also can’t thank you enough for the section in your book about finishing with steam. What a difference that makes !

Thanks again for everything Ruth.
You have inspired me so much to explore and design my own style of knitting, which I didn’t feel confident enough to do beforehand.

If I manage to go from strength to strength I’ll keep you posted.

Jane.

To order your own copy go to www.amazon.co.uk (The Knitted Home- English/ Australian title) or www.amazon.com (Knits At Home- North American title). It is also available in French, Finnish and German.