Finished Object #1

I finished the Mitered Cross pillow last night.

I'd purchased the pattern from Kay Gardiner (Mason-Dixon Knitting) on Ravelry. She'd created it as a benefit for the Japan earthquake and knit a blanket out of Noro yarn that was beautiful. The cream Noro that she'd used for the background was a discontinued colorway, and I wanted to start knitting right away, so I decided to use some recycled sari yarn that I had recycled from a sweater I'd gotten at a church rummage sale and yarn recycled from my first knitting project several years ago -- a wrap made of lots of different cream yarns. I liked the yarns, but the wrap was much too long and I never used it much because of that.

I did the first block quickly because I wanted to see how the pattern and combination of yarns worked out. I liked the look be decided the fabric was too heavy and not drape-y enough to be a good blanket. So I got the idea to make a pillow, which is what I did.

I finished the second block, which had been languishing, on Friday before my trip to Ocean City. I tried to sew it up but quickly realized it really needed a good blocking. So I washed and blocked it Friday night, and left it to dry while I left for Ocean City on Saturday. Yesterday, it was completely dry and I sewed it into a 16 inch pillow form last night.

I would not do this same yarn combo again. The sari yarn ran terribly when I washed the pillow pieces for blocked (the cream background is now stained a little in places) and the various cream yarns knit up at all sorts of gauges even tho' I used the same size 10 1/2 (8.5 mm) needles throughout. Thus, blocking was an absolute necessity to get square 16 inch blocks to sew together. The sari yarn also stiffened a bit in blocking -- not bad, but definitely not blanket material.

Still, I think it is a moderately successful pillow.