Inspired Interiors from The World Knits Collection

Available on my website here 

and on Ravelry here

Inspired Interiors is Number 14 of the World Knits Collection. 

So I'll be honest with you all. This is probably my favorite pattern from The World Knits Collection. I have been interested in interior decoration for my entire adult life and I was always trying to figure out a way I could add knitting to my interiors. Finally in the early 90's I thought about mimicking needlepoint pillows with knitted Fair Isle patterning. If I knit the fabric tight enough and designed the right Fair Isle Chart, the resulting fabric could then be embellished with duplicate stitch to look like needlepoint. 

Once I started thinking about pillows, I couldn't stop dreaming up shapes that could be knit. There are 5 different styles of pillows in this collection. First of all, and most simple, is a square pillow in two sizes -- 14 and 20". The instructions are given for in the round knitting with a steek. Once you are done with the tube, you will cut the steek stitches down the middle. Using a very long circular needle (or perhaps 2), stitches are picked up all the way around the pillow and a mitered border is added.

The second square pillow is shown all the way to the left (red, black, gold and purple). This pillow is worked in the round and shaping is done with double decreases at four corners. The stitches are reduced and at the same time, a pattern forms. I knit this pillow and I still have it on my couch as you can see in the photo at the end of this post (second from the left). 

The next pillow design is a round pillow. It is a very large piece of circular knitting. To design this pillow, I thought about a traditional Fair Isle Tam and developed charts that had motifs that would look like they came out of a middle eastern bazaar. Four of my sample knitters made this design and you can see how Prabha - who grew up in India - added a traditional elephant motif to her pillow. 

The last pillow design is a bolster. Swanky interior magazines often feature bolsters on couches so why not a knit one? To design this one, I looked to my Moroccan Fedora pattern. I lengthened the body and then worked the decrease like on the Fedora pattern. To close the bolster, a second circular hat top is made. The bolster is stuffed and the round piece is sewed to finish it. You can see the bolster in the photo above on the right.  

For all the pillows, you will only need to knit the pillow front. Directions are given to use a piece of fabric as the backing. The fabric is hemmed and then hand sewn to the edge of the pillow. 

I've gone on to make lots of knitted pillows that I use in my house. Below you can see my sofa in our library full of knitted pillows made over the years. Maybe you will try to knit one or more for your home too? What do you think?

Available on my website here 

and on Ravelry here