New design: Snowflake cushion

I showed you a preview of this design last week, and here it is in more detail: my Snowflake cushion.

I have always been fascinated by snowflakes, with their perfect six-fold symmetry, and each one being unique. In keeping with this, the snowflake on this cushion cover has six long arms, which was something of a challenge, as the shape of knitted stitches is better suited to shapes with two- and four-fold symmetry, but I'm pleased with how the design turned out.

Snowflakes have six-fold symmetry. Image from Splash on Pixabay, used under Creative Commons CC0.

The Snowflake cushion is knitted using the intarsia technique, as it features long stretches of the stitches in the same colour, but if you wanted to save yourself a few ends you could strand the regions where the colour changes are frequent (in general, I'd work sections with colour changes up to every 3-4 stitches using stranded colourwork). I would strongly advise using yarn bobbins for this design - in some rows I required 18 bobbins - otherwise you'll get in a tangle. Remember to keep the bobbins close to your work, only unwinding yarn as you need it. But intarsia is not a complex technique if you take it slowly.

Take it slowly and yarn bobbins will stop you getting in a tangle

The cushion cover is knitted in Drops Alaska, a rustic, aran weight 100% wool yarn that is very good value (and Drops often have 25% discount deals, which are worth looking out for), and perfect for intarsia as the yarn is quite grippy, making for neat colour changes and ends that stay put when they are darned in. The Snowflake cushion could also be knitted in any plied wool or wool/acrylic blend yarn, such as Stylecraft Life Aran, which is one of my favourite yarns for homewares. The cushion cover is knitted in an envelope style, fastened with four 4cm wooden buttons.

If you wish to make your own Snowflake cushion, the pattern can be purchased via Ravelry or Love Knitting.

#knit1000g: The first 1000g

A few weeks ago my friend Leigh said that she had decided some stashbusting was in order, and that she wasn't going to buy any more yarn until she had knitted 1000g from her stash. What an excellent idea, I thought; stashbusting has been on my mind recently as I have what could be considered too much wool (is there such a thing? I am almost out of cupboard space). So I decided that I would join Leigh in her challenge. Leigh put up the call on both Instagram (using the hashtag #knit1000g) and on her podcast and pretty soon we were joined by a small group of knitters all eager to make the most of their stash.

The #knit1000g challenge is very much a personal one, where everyone involved has decided what they want their rules to be; I decided that WIPs would count, and that I would only be counting personal projects, not third party commissions, although self-published projects would count (there is a backlog!). And with those rules set out, I started knitting.

The first project was easy - a baby cardigan for a friend's new baby, which was on the needles and very nearly finished. The cardigan is a slightly scaled up version of the Barley Twist cardigan published in issue 65 of Knit Now, and I'm aiming to have the pattern available in ages 3 months to 12 years early next year. 87g

The second project was another WIP - socks for my son in the wonderful West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply. The yarn is from their cocktails range and this colourway is called Mojito. WYS 4 ply is one of my favourite sock yarns; it's excellent value and I love all the colourways in the cocktail stripes range that was launched this summer. 47g

One final WIP made up project three: a baby blanket featuring buttons. This is a project that has been in my head for a long time, and I was delighted to finally get it committed to yarn! I'm in the process of getting the pattern finalised, and hope to have it published in the next few weeks. 603g

My fourth project was an urgent one: a hat for my daughter. In the past week the weather has turned from late summer to proper autumn. I decided on a cute seasonal hat, Harvest's Bounty, and the finished hat is adorable (it's getting lots of compliments on the school run too)! 40g

Project five was something new, and rather festive: a cushion featuring a large intarsia snowflake. Another project that I'd been planning for a while, and the #knit1000g  challenge was the impetus I needed to get it on the needles. I was really cutting the amount of yarn fine on this one, and had only a scrap of blue yarn left at the end. The pattern is now available in my Ravelry store, allowing anyone else who wants a go plenty of time to knit one in time for Christmas. 307g

And there we have it, 1084g of yarn used! I'm not stopping there though. I mostly use heavier weight yarns, so my personal challenge will be to use 3000g, ideally by Christmas. This may even include a cardigan for me! Do you want to join in the #knit1000g challenge? Set your own targets and join the fun! And as a reward, you can buy some more yarn when you reach your target!