and then there was one more pillow

Ugh, the light is bad right now, but I was too excited about finishing the 4th pillow to stop and wait for better light. Here it is, front overly bright, front overly dark, and back overly dark.

Turns out pillows aren't the best pit knitting, but they aren't the worst, either. This afternoon I brought in the top, the back, the pillow form, and a few supplies. At the end of the show, I had a new pillow. Yippee!

sprint to the finish line

I'm getting ready! These last 3 spiral pillows are almost finished. Today I spread out on the table and decided to assemble all of the pillow tops. One was already done, so I'm finishing the last 2. After that, I'll be able to do the surface crochet, then whip them together.

If I plan well, maybe I can do some of the embellishing in the pit. And, working the large spirals for the pillow backs (there are 2 left to do) would be a good pit project. I just can't put these down until they're finished...................

need to make more freeform mitts!

Remember these mitts? I just saw them mentioned on another blog.
What a nice thing to see!
I love what she did with her mitts, makes me want to do some with lots of different yarns, too.

new pictures of 2nd spiral pillow

Since there was better light today than when I took pictures of this pillow originally, I decided to take some more. Above, it's the 1st pillow on the chair where it lives. They certainly do flatten out when someone sits on them!

Here's the 2nd pillow top, above, and the back, below. Much better pictures!

almost enough for company

With 3(!) pillows finished, there's almost enough to be a set of 4 at the table. This one went really fast, probably because I did little else this weekend besides working on it! I'm hoping the 4th will go fast as well, but I'm doing a show these next 2 weeks, and that will make it a bit tricky.

Usually, I get a lot of knitting done in the pit, but these pillows will not make good pit projects. Too many balls of yarn, too much starting and stopping, too messy. One color projects are much better for the pit, but I may push it and see what happens.




I'm also in the middle of choosing yarns for a round purse that will look a whole lot like these pillows. My mom wondered what a purse would look like with the same spiral designs. I'm going to make her one with browns, cranberrys, and pinks. Coincidentally, the bag will be a lot like the yellow spiral bag in Prudence Mapstone's book, Never Too Many Handbags. The pillows were inspired by the photo of this same bag.

spiraling

I'm trying to capitalize on the excitement of finishing the last spiral pillow by jumping into the 3rd one immediately. As of today, the pillow top has been sewn up, but not embellished. The pillow back has been made, but not embellished. Now, only the fun parts remain. Doing the surface crochet is my favorite part, which means I should have another pillow done before too long.


And on the quick knitting front, here's another camo hat for David G. There was enough yarn left over from Jeff's hat for another one. What else am I going to do with camo yarn?

Two....two spiral pillows....ah ha ha........

So now half of the dining room chairs have a pillow cushion! Last night I finished another spiral pillow, and today's weather is gray, so my pictures are not the best. The first 3 photos show the front of the pillow, and none of them are really true to color. Reality lives somewhere between the light and dark shots.


Having 2 pillows completed has made me really want to do the rest. And won't it be nice to say goodbye to the pillow forms taking up room in the closet!! Must focus on the incentives of finishing up this big project........


I didn't put very much effort into the back of this one. Just one color for the spiral, another color for the surface embellishment. For the first one, I did a 3 color spiral with 3 more colors for embellishment, and it was way too much work for the back of a pillow.


The 3rd pillow should be coming fairly soon. I've already made the back spiral, it's just a matter of assembling the small spirals for the front (which I've also already made) and working the surface embellishment. Shouldn't take too long, right?

finishing up a long-time project

I'm pretty excited to complete these freeform mitts. I started them just because I had the majority of a skein of Ultra Alpaca and decided to see how I'd like doing one-color-freeform.
It's safe to say that I do really like it, and I can see that in some situations, it makes freeform more wearable. If these mitts featured as many colors as I normally like to use, they'd be a bit wild for every day use. This way, they're really fun, but will blend in with an outfit at the same time.
They're more or less the same size, but the right hand mitt is a little better fitting.
The color is shown best in this last photo. The others make it look much more yellowish than it really is. People who know me would be very shocked if I wore anything yellow, even that far away from my face, because it really isn't my color. This green is a departure for me, but I think it works.
Hurray! Can't wait for a day to come along that's cool enough for these..........

finished scarf

All done! I like how the fringe turned out, and I found a really easy way to cut it evenly. Although I don't do any quilting anymore, I still have the large cutting mat and rotary cutter. The mat comes in handy for blocking, and today I used the whole set up to cut the fringe. The large ruler held the fringe in place while I whacked off the uneven bits pizza-cutter-style with the rotary cutter.

simple, fun, and fabulous

I'm doing the easiest project in the world, a seed stitch scarf in Colinette's Giotto, a free pattern from the company. It uses all of one skein of Giotto, and tells you to cut the fringe first then knit until there's nothing left to knit. That's a good plan, but Margaret at Cozy has a plan, too. The last time she did one of these, she left a little Giotto for fringe, but then she invaded her stash for compatible yarns. The scarf looked great, and we keep it the store for inspiration.
When Marie was in Cozy, she saw the scarf and was inspired. Would I make her one in the Blue Parrot colorway? Yes, I said, I'd love to. Knitting with Colinette yarn is a pleasure anytime, anywhere. Did I have yarns that might work for the fringe, she asked? Ha! I said. Are you kidding? See the photos above and below for shots of the fringe selection.
And because yarn is just so darn pretty in and of itself, here's a close up.
This project is a great example of how very simple knitting can give you a wonderful result. There's nothing fancy here except the yarn. Complicated projects are great too, but sometimes it's nice to balance them with easy stuff.