Home-a-Rama Pillows

I have a wonderful friend here in the Charlotte 'burbs, Michele, who's an awesome crafter and artist. She gives art & craft lessons to our local community and makes the most beautiful things for her home. Go see the loveliness she has for sale in her Etsy shop .

A couple of months ago, Michele was working on a room design project for a local builder's "Home-a-rama". She was to decorate a girl's bedroom and a 'jack and jill' bathroom. She made all the fabric soft furnishings, but wanted a bit of extra texture, so asked me to make a couple of pillows.

Here they are, in all their disco glory.
Michele chose the colours, and I whipped up this granny square beauty.Other side......Buttony closure. No need for button holes. The granny square has them built-in.

This next one was knit, but I crocheted the two sides together in the contrasting green - yes, I am loving the crochet right now ;0)

Buttons courtesy of Michele's vast volumes of vintage. Couldn't resist that bit of alliteration. Carry on! And some duplicate stitch stems in that contrasting green, to tie it all together."Patterns", as such, are as follows:

GRANNY SQUARE PILLOW

You'll need not quite 6 skeins of "kitchen cotton", a 5mm hook and as many buttons to fasten as you'd like.

Front: Make 17 rounds of "Granny Square" pattern. Here's a good tutorial from Purl Soho.

Back: Same as Front

To make-up: Crochet 3 sides of the pillow together. Sew on buttons.

This should give you a pillow size around 16" square.

STRIPED PILLOW

You'll need not quite 4 skeins of "kitchen cotton", a 5mm needle for the stockinette stitch stripes and a 4.5mm needle for the moss stitch. Use however many buttons to fasten as you'd like. Oh, and don't forget the crochet hook for making up.

Back of Pillow - Cast on 74 sts. Knit 39 stripes in stockinette stitch - 2 rows of each colour. Bind off.

Front of Pillow (Top) - Cast on 74 sts. Knit 26 stripes in stockinette stitch, then 8 rows of moss st. Bind off

Front of Pillow (Bottom) - Cast on 74 sts. Knit 8 stripes in stockinette stitch, then 3 rows of moss st. Insert button-holes at appropriate places on next row of moss st. Knit 4 more rows of moss st. Bind off.

To make-up - crochet the outside edges of the pillow together. Sew on buttons. Duplicate stitch the flower "stems". Sew on Flower buttons.

This should fit a 12"x16" pillow form. My gauge was around 4.5/5 sts per inch.

Stockinette Stitch: knit one row, purl the next.

Moss Stitch: knit one, purl one. On the following row, purl the knits and knit the purls.

Enjoy

Disco xo