Bolster Cover 2 - Cast On!

Recently I have started using the round bolster pillow that I created using some of my early handspun yarn to provide extra support to my lower back when I’m on my daybed (my usual spot these days) and it occurred to me that maybe Bruce would like one as well.  He had a special pillow that he has been using for years that is definitely past its best by date.  So, I purchased some more bolster pillow forms and checked my stash for some suitable yarn.  I ended up going with Expression Fiber Arts Enduring Worsted.  I had three three-skein sets that had the potential to work together. 

I pulled them out and, after letting them mingle for a day, decided on the two caked skeins at the bottom.   Given that I am improvising, and have no idea of how much yarn I will actually need I decided to do colorwork figuring that it would give me a lot of flexibility, and pulled out The Doodle Knit Directory by Jamie Lomax and started looking for a pattern that I liked.  I settled on the leaf, given the fall colors I had picked.  I had already cast on 90 stitches with the darker color, based upon my guess at the gauge and the circumference of the pillow, so I was pretty much committed to that stitch count.  The pattern I picked, however, was 24 stitches, not the 30 that I needed for an even repeat.  No problem.  I opened up Pattern Genius and set up a chart that was 30 stitches by 24 rows and proceeded to reproduce the stitch pattern, then I added some of the minor motifs to the blank space that I had to fill, exported it to PDF, pulled it in to knitCompanion and set up my chart.  Easy Peasy.

I need to work 4 repeats of the chart, plus another 5 rows and a bind-off to get the length that I need.  The end caps I will do with crochet circles using one (or more) of the remaining skeins.  Based upon my yarn usage so far I may have enough in the two skeins to get there.  I weighed them before I cast on, and weighed them after finishing the first repeat and so far things are looking good.  I will weigh them again after finishing the second repeat, which will be my half-way point.  If I don’t have enough of the background color I will simply swap the two colors and use the lighter one for the background and the darker one for the motif.

Before I started spinning and working with my handspun I would never have been so bold as to just jump into a design like this.  It is incredibly liberating and has really energized my creativity.  Of course being retired helps a lot as my brain power is not being sucked up by work anymore.

For reference, here is the bolster pillow that inspired this project.

It is a pretty unassuming little thing, but it made good use of two skeins of handspun that I really didn’t know what else to do with.  They were early spins and not very consistent.  In fact, my gauge changed when I changed skeins, but foam and knitting are both forgiving mediums.

Pattern:  Improvised

Yarn:  Expression Fiber Arts Enduring Worsted

Needle:  US 6 (4.0 mm)