New design: Rainbow Unicorn cushion

One of the things I've been really keen to do this year is to republish some of my most popular magazine patterns, and the one I'm releasing today was absolutely at the top of my list: the Rainbow Unicorn cushion.*

Unicorns have been everywhere for the past couple of years, and this is my cheerful take on the trend. The cushion, featuring the silhouette of a unicorn's head, is knitted in a bright rainbow palette of self-striping yarn. The unicorn motif is added using a combination of intarsia and stranded colourwork in order to maintain the stripe pattern across the whole unicorn head. If you can't get hold of any rainbow striped yarn, of course you could work the unicorn head in a single colour, or devise your own stripe sequence and use several balls of yarn.

The pattern also works in a single colour

The cushion is 43 cm (17.25 in) square, designed to fit an 46 cm (18 in) square cushion pad with 3 cm negative ease. The cushion is knitted in one piece and fastened with six 18mm (0.75 in) buttons across the back on a ribbed button band. Half the back is knitted, then the front, then the second half of the back and the side seams are then stitched. 

Instructions for the intarsia section are provided both as a chart and as written instructions.

The sample was knitted in West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley Aran, which has unfortunately been discontinued (there is still some available from Love Knitting* if you're quick, but not in the rainbow colourway). There are quite a few self-striping yarns on the market at the minute that would also work: Caron Cakes** (which is lovely to work with), Lion Brand Lanscapes** (which comes in amazing saturated colourways), Bernat Pop** (again, lots of nice bright colourways), and Knit Picks Chroma (the Pegasus colourway would be beautiful).

Fancy picking up a copy of the pattern right away? You can find it here. From now until 11.59pm BST Thursday 26th July 2018, the pattern has 25% off, no code needed.

*This pattern was first published in Issue 4 of Essential Knits.
**Affiliate links.