Pillows and an Improved Yarn Balance

I started these pillows a really, really long time ago. I was attracted to them because of their colors and because they looked challenging.


Critical miscalculations on my part: The yarn I bought, Knitpicks, was not the yarn used in the pattern. Thus, not the same colors. Whereas the pattern looked like something that would be mellow, almost rustic, mine came out "circus like" and "bold."



See how the back of the one pillow is all vertical stripes? Yeah, that's about 12 inches of intarsia using something like 25 different strands. Challenging? More like heavy, frustrating, and not something you want to pick up to work on for "a few minutes." I could have made it easier on myself by using fewer bobbins and just carrying the yarn more, but I wanted to do it "right." Pff.



Buttons. They cost money. Wasn't really a problem when I started the pillows and had this great job where I could just show up, do easy work, and earn the little extra money I needed. I bought these buttons in Portland, ME while on a research trip for my Master's thesis. If that doesn't say poor, I don't know what does. The buttons are my only souvenir from the trip. I guess that's one reason to keep the pillows around.
One really valuable thing came out of these pillows, besides learning that I shouldn't do vertical intarsia stripes: I learned that I was mounting my purl stitches backwards somewhere in the middle of the first pillow. You can totally see the line where I went from improper purls to proper. Long lasting evidence of my folly.


And, on the lighter side, one night I was balling some sock yarn and I was like, "Huh, how will I know if these two halves of this hank are close in weight?" Sam came to the rescue with her ingenious handkerchief/hanger balance scale. And no, she did not dress as Justice for Halloween.