Bolster Pillow - Finished!

This fiber was from Paradise Fibers, and is called Girl with Pearl Earring.  It is 54% Merino, 40% Kid Mohair, 6% Stellina.  I ended up with two skeins, one of 51 yards and 60.3 grams (~.85 yards/gram), and one of 72 yards and 79.1 grams (~0.91 yards/gram).  It was spun on my Kromski at an 8:1 ratio and played on my Kiwi at a 9.5:1 ratio.  I didn’t really know what else to do with it, but had a vague notion of turning it into a pillow, and ended up settling on a bolster pillow, so I grabbed a US 8 (5.0 mm) needle and cast on some stitches.

If you look at the blocking picture you can see that it did not come out as a perfect cylinder.  Yes, my gauge changed because my two skeins of yarn were not quite the same weight.  They weren’t that much off, but it was enough.  I didn’t really let it worry me, because I figured it wouldn’t make too much of a difference when I worked it up into the pillow.  I finished the knitting quickly, casting on March 13, and casting off March 14.  Then I had to wait for the bolster pillow form to arrive.  It came yesterday.  I immediately stuffed it into my waiting tube.

Yes, the bolster sticks out some at either end.  My tube was between sizes so I went with the larger size figuring yarn stretches and pillows compress and bolsters should be on the firmer side.  For the end caps I had already decided that I was just going to crochet circles until they were big enough to join with my knitted tube.  I had some sparkly DK yarn from Expression Fiber Arts left over from another project so I decided to use that.  I did the cast off (smaller end) first.

I joined the last round with the cast off edge using single crochet, pinning the end cap to the knitted tube using locking stitch markers and placing stitch markers about every 1.5 inches around the circumference so I could do the finagling to make them fit together neatly.  I then crocheted another end cap the same size and attached it to my cast on edge.  That was easier to do, just because of the nature of cast on and cast off edges, and the fact that it was a bit looser then my cast off edge.

I am delighted with the result.

Pattern:  None, just a simple knitted tube and some crocheted rounds

Yarn:  Hand spun by me

Needle:  US 8 (5.0 mm)

Hook:  4.5 mm