DIY

Jan

2016

A crocheted pillowcase/cushioncase

The new pillowcase. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

The old cushion/pillow. Photo ©nini.tjader.2016

I have this old cushion/pillow from Ikea since a couple of years back. It is meant for outside use, summertime. The cushioncase is very colorful and totally wrong for the inside (though it has been used in the chaiselongue occassionally). Took it off to investigate the pillow inside (and to put it in the laundry).

The cushion without a cover. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

The pillow itself is OK. Quite big. Round. Soft.

Crocheted pillowcase. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

So I decided to use a jeans-blue cotton yarn I recently re-covered from a former sweater and to crochet a new cover for the pillow. It is easy chrocheting. You just go around and around in circles until you reach the desired size.

Crocheted pillowcase. Photo:©nini.tjader.2016

You start on one side with a few stitches. Then go around and add stitches at intervals as needed to each row to keep the crocheting round and flat.

Crocheted pillowcase. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

When half of the pillowcase is crocheted, I left an opening wide enough to be able to insert the pillow into its cover and then continued with the same amount of stitches on the next row around.

This particular pillow has a straight edge of about 10 cms where I therefore stopped adding stitches for the number of rows needed, made the opening in the middle of the straight part, and then, when reaching the end of the straight edge, started reducing the number of stitches as needed to keep the other side of the pillowcase flat.

The opening of the pillowcase. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

When the entire pillowcase was ready, I crocheted an additional row in the opening, plus one row with simple stitches to make the buttonholes. I then bought as many buttons as I had buttonholes in an appropriate size and sewed them to the other side of the opening of the pillowcase. Odd thing was that I actually had to buy buttons… I have a fairly large button-collection which I inherited from my mother and have kept adding to over the years. But this time there wasn’t any buttons in the right size in my collection.

Crocheted pillowcase. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

I then inserted the pillow into its new pillowcase.

Crocheted pillowcase. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

And closed it with the buttons.

Crocheted pillowcase. Photo:©nini.tjader.2016

Done. So where did I put it?

The new crocheted pillowcase. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

I put it on top of the pouff in the livingroom. It might not be its definite place, but the size of the IKEA pillow happened to be of the same size as the top of the IKEA pouff.

Unfortunately the light conditions had gone from bad to worse before I could shoot this picture. It was, and still is very dark presently and hard to get decent light conditions to take pictures in natural light. That explains the very grainy pictures above and below.

The new crocheted pillowcase. Photo: ©ninit.tjader.2016

Dec

2015

New knitted pillowcases

Knitted pillowcases. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

At the end of October I bought some very thick yarn, with the intention to knit (or crochet) pillowcases from it. The result can be seen above, two pillowcases.

I have always liked knitted pillowcases and have long intended to make some.

Cotton yarn. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

It is woven yarn, recycled cotton. Very thick. Called ECO Yarn. Its use is limited, but it is good for pillowcases, baskets, small mats and other such stuff. It is fast work, but it gets heavier and heavier the more you knit. Not too heavy though.

Cotton yarn. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2015

I bought it at the Sewing and knitting fair in Stockholm at the end of October from Lankava.se. It is an ECO Yarn.

I used two different knitting methods for the pillow cases. One is made with garter stitch, the other with moss stitch. Both very simple. I closed the ready pillowcases by simply inserting one thread of the yarn along one side, through the meshes. Then made a knot at the corner where the opening was to be able to find it later if I would need to open up the pillowcase for washing for instance. They look the same on both sides.

If you don’t want to knit as much as both sides, make only one side and then put some suitable fabric on the backside of the pillow case.

I like the structure of the finished pillow cases. Simple to make. Only hard thing was to find out how many meshes to put on the knitting stick. Took some tries and redoing before I found the right size. The size of the knitting sticks used for these two pillowcases is 15 mm.

I still have some yarn left that I don’t know what to do with presently. Too little for yet another two-sided pillowcase, but maybe enough for a one-sided.

Jan

2015