Bolster Cover 3 - Finished!

This one worked up so fast.  This morning I crocheted the end caps and attached them.  This one does not fit as tightly on the pillow form as the previous one because I cast on more stitches - 96 stitches for this one, 90 stitches for the previous one.  This also made it cover more of the pillow form so I did not work as many rounds on the end caps.  I only worked 16 rounds (as opposed to 18 rounds for the previous one) which made it perfect, as that resulted in 96 stitches on the end cap, which made joining it to the bolster easy peasy.

This is before I had attached the end caps.

And this is an end cap in the making.

The yarn is super soft and nice to work with, and the colors are wonderful.  I do love how this one came out even though these are not my usual colors, but I think they are perfect, and I love the sea creatures.

Pattern:  Improvised

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Enduring Worsted

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm) and Crochet Hook G (4.0 mm)

Bolster Cover 2 - Finished!

Here is the finished bolster, in its official spot - Bruce’s chair.  He is very happy with it, and it is a definite improvement over the cushion that he had been using for ages.  Although I did try very had to keep my floats loose, there are some places where there are single stitches that are a little pulled, but overall I am very happy with how it came out, especially considering that I really just winged it.

Here is an end cap in progress.  I just crochet a circle until it is big enough, and then work another round where I join it to the cast on or bound off edge, as the case may be.  Once I get enough stitches in a round that counting becomes tiresome and error prone, I put markers on the stitches where I need to work increases.  I also have an end of round marker.

Pattern:  Improvised

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Enduring Worsted

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm), & Hook size G (4.0 mm) for the end caps.

Bolster Cover 3 - Colowork Finished!

This one went super fast.  I cast on Friday and finished it up on Saturday.  It was so much fun to knit, and now I want to do more colorwork.  I used the same blocking process on both bolster covers:  soak, wrap in a towel and walk on it to get the water out, pin the cast on and bound off edges on the blocking mats to combat the curling,  I leave them for a day, and then remove the pins and transfer them to a suspended mesh drying rack so the air can circulate around it.  That speeds up the drying considerably.  I checked on this one this morning, and it is almost dry.  I already have a color picked out for the crochet end caps.

Pattern:  Improvised 

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Enduring Worsted

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Bolster Cover 3 - Cast On!

As soon as I finished the colorwork for the second bolster cover I immediately cast on another one.  I have two bolster forms to cover.  This one is a bit of a different vibe.  I had these two skeins and I knew I wanted to use them together, but I really did not want that dark brown to be the background, so I decided to flip things, so the variegated yarn is the background and the dark brown is the motif color.  I had also fallen in love with the octopus motif so I decided on an ocean theme.  Looking at the row counts and how many rows I need for one of these covers (106) I ended up picking three different motifs:  OCTOPUS, SEASHELL, and SQUID.  The order of knitting will be:  OCTOPUS, SEASHELL, SQUID, SQUID (with the chart flipped so it points in the opposite direction), SEASHELL, OCTOPUS.  I cast on with the dark brown and worked one row before switching to the variegated yarn and beginning the first chart.  This time I did cast on 96 stitches, so I am repeating the motif four times around.  I am also using stitch markers between the repeats.  I know that the variegated yarn does have some dark runs that almost match the background color, which does obscure the motifs in places, but I think it just adds to the mystery of the creatures.  Once again, these motifs are all taken from The Doodle Knit Directory by Jamie Lomax.

I reproduced them in Pattern Genius, exported them to PDF, and imported them in to knitCompanion.

Pattern:  Improvised

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Enduring Worsted

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)

Bolster Cover 2 - Colorwork Finished!

The knitting on this went super fast. In between colorwork projects I seem to forget how addictive it is.  My gauge obviously changed between the 5 rows of stockinette at the beginning and end, and the 96 rows of colorwork in between.  If I were doing this again I would work an increase round to bring the colorwork section stitch count up to 96.  This would have allowed me to work the leaf pattern four times around, instead of three, and I wouldn’t have had to modify the pattern at all.  But, I love how it came out and I think my additions look great.  Now I just have to wait for it to dry.  Worsted weight, colorwork, it is going to take a little while.  The colorwork pattern is LEAVES 13 from The Doodle Knit Directory by Jamie Lomax.

Pattern:  Improvised

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Enduring Worsted

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)