I’ve accidentally designed a cushion!

I’ve had a bit of a sore elbow – tendonitis probably.

A friend of mine suggested knitting with my right arm resting on a cushion , and having a project on thick needles handy to alternate with the fine Kidsilk Haze project. The fine finger movements of tiny metal needles and incredibly fine yarn were probably aggravating the tendonitits.

So I bought a cheap cushion pad and it helped while knitting the Kidsilk Haze (along with Ibuprofen, tubigrip on the elbow and some hot and cold compresses.)

Ben, who being male doesn’t understand the purpose of cushions, said, “I can stand having another cushion but couldn’t we buy a cover for it? It’s a bit ugly.”

Buy a cover? I had a much better idea!

I went stash-diving. I wanted something on big needles as a contrast to the Kidsilk Haze projects….

…I came up for air from my stash dive grasping a baggie of Rowan Ribbon twist. The brown had been used for the Judie Jacket, then subsequently frogged because it made my size 8 figure look like a overfed elephant – not quite the desired effect.  🙁 I have lots of Ribbon Twist and no project assigned to the yarn.

Here’s the yarn…

I also had two balls of grey Ribbon Twist left over for my willow jacket made way back in Feb 07. Hmmm….I have a beautiful warm handknit jacket I haven’t worn this year and it’s Brrrr-Freezy – Guess what I’m wearing to work tomorrow?

Just in case you’re too idle to click the willow link,  here’s a pic…

My sofa is choccie brown leather so the brown Ribbon Twist had to be the body of the cushion. Would grey work??? How to incorporate it?

I kinda launched straight in and decided to knit the Ribbon Twist on smaller needles than the recommended 12mm, I went for 10mm to give a denser fabric because my cushion pad was frankly, ugly and I didn’t want it showing through the stitches when it was leant on.

I decided the grey would go together, especially as both the grey and brown have a unifying cream ribbon in them.  The brown also has a grey ribbon…serendipity…

I decided on moss stitch for the bulk of the cushion – not a favourite stitch but on that gives good structure and texture. The grey, I wanted as a swirling cabled “Ribbon” snaking up the sea of brown moss stitch. I’d done an intarsia contrast cable as part of Ben’s Brooklyn Jacket years ago so I knew it was fiddly but possible…

Here’s what I threw together for the first side…

I was rather pleased!

The other side of the cushion took a little more thought….how so I get the cushion pad in and out of the cover?

I decided to knit two 3/4 length pieces, edged with a rib, and overlap them…
I sewed one side down properly and just tucked the other side underneath…Kinda like you tuck the flap in on an envelope when you don’t want to lick it – 30 seconds before you give the birthday card to someone in my case usually! 😯

It came out great! look at this!!

That’s the side with the opening down the middle on my sofa.

I could stop blogging there and pretend I was a genius but I always feel I have to share the failures with you too.

I cuddled up on my lovely new cushion and put my weight on it….

It burst!

Yep, one sprawl and I was off to the button stash looking for remedial measures….

Fortunately I found four little matching brown beauties of buttons to save me. I really didn’t want a “big button statement” or anything uncomfortable to lean on.

I hadn’t made button holes but you could if you wanted to – in my experience, button holes in chunky yarns are very hard to make neat – you’re just as well off to poke the button through the stitch – which is what I did! (This also gives you flexibility when the cushion pad compresses over time)

So here it a  finished back view…

And the front 🙂

I call it my Chunky Twisted Ribbon Cushion.

Here’s a PDF of the pattern if you’d like to make a similar one (any chunky would work, not just ribbon twist!)

Click here to download Chunky Twisted Ribbon Cushion PDF Pattern

Enjoy!!