Bay View Pillow Knitting Pattern

This is the story of how I kidnapped yarn from my dear friend’s yarn stash and used it to design and knit her birthday present.

 

Back in July, I was visiting my dear friend and we were chatting about knitting and yarn.   She pulled out her “stash” of yarn while we talked.  The “stash” included two unfinished projects a friend of hers had recently passed on to her.  Apparently, the friend had lost interest in her half finished projects and wanted the yarn out of her house.  My friend told me she’d be happy to share any of the “gifted yarn” but I was having a hard time getting too excited about any of it.  One project was a partially started sweater knit with very bulky tweed yarn.  It looked like that sweater would be very, very heavy to wear.  The other unfinished project was a sweater knit with light weight, hot pink wool yarn.  You would really need to like hot pink to wear that sweater! 

However, what intrigued me the most in the assortment of yarn was an unopened 10 skein package of beautiful blue Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky yarn. 

Yarn I kidnapped from my friend's "stash".

I recognized that yarn immediately because my friend bought that yarn when we were traveling together about eight years ago and we happened upon a little yarn shop.  As I sat in my friend’s living room holding her beautiful blue yarn I realized that the color matched her living room perfectly.  She has lots of soft yellow in the natural wood paneled living room, with accents of blue here and there.  I asked her if I could take her lovely blue yarn and design a knitted pillow for her living room.   She thought it was a great idea!

Here’s the pillow I designed and knit for her birthday….which conveniently was only about two weeks after I stole her yarn!

The "Bay View Pillow" knitting pattern by Fifty Four Ten Studio

I’ve now learned that the Debbie Bliss Merino Chunky yarn has been discontinued…a number of years ago.  However, this pattern will work great with any number of chunky weight yarns.  Berroco has a line called Vintage Chunky that comes in lots of colors and would work nicely.   Also, this pattern would look nice knit with Malabrigo Chunky.  When you are looking for yarn, look for chunky weight yarn in the “bulky” category of yarn in the United States.  I used size 10 needles and the gauge in stockinette stitch is 14 sts x 17 rows = 4 inches.

This pattern is very easy to knit!  Just knit and purl stitches. 

The pillow cover is knit as one rectangular piece which is then folded in half and seamed on the sides.  After inserting a 16” x 16” purchased pillow form the bottom seam is sewn up.  The pattern includes detailed finishing instructions with lots of tutorial photos.

Detailed finishing instructions included in pattern along with photos.

I wrapped the pillow up for my friend for her birthday.  She loved it!  I have to say that the pillow looks fantastic in her living room.  I also gave her back the three skeins of yarn that were leftover.  I think my friend was OK with me stealing her yarn and giving her a finished pillow in return.  :)

I named this pattern the “Bay View Pillow” because my friend has a lovely view of the lake from her living room.  And, her beautiful blue yarn reminds me of the color of the lake on a sunny summer day.

The “Bay View Pillow” knitting pattern is available on Ravelry and in my Etsy shop. 

The "Bay View Pillow" knitting pattern.