Cushion cover – Hooked on Häkelmaschen

The Design

The cushion cover is designed for a 50 x 50 cm (20 x 20 inch) cushion. The finished size is about 46 x 46 cm (18 x 18 in).
With the size I followed an advice I found on the internet. It said that to make a square cushion look nice and plump, the cover should be about 5 cm (2 in) smaller than the cushion.
At first I was unsure whether this would really work. And when I finally put the cushion into the cover to close the last seam, I was pretty sure at first that it had become too small. But everything turned out well in the end. I am totally happy with the result!

The front part of the cover is made up of 16 squares, arranged in a 4 x 4 layout. Each square measures about 10 x 10 cm (4 x 4 in).
For the back, I opted for a simple square. Mainly single-coloured, with a few small contrasts.

The size is easy to adjust by enlarging or reducing the border of the front piece. The rounds for the back must then of course be adjusted accordingly.

My Colours and Colour Placement

My colour choice was inspired by a cushion cover I got from IKEA some years ago.

I selected five colours from my Stylecraft Special DK stash focusing on yellow-green and blue-green tones.

Originally, I wanted to create a random colour scheme for the design again. This time, however, I failed with the use of the random generator. I didn’t like the results, so I worked out something of my own. The outcome is not really random, but has a similar effect. You can read all about it in one of my earlier posts.

Of course, you can also use different yarns and/or different colours. But please bear in mind that using a different yarn may affect the size of the finished cushion. It may also change the quantity of yarn required.

I am totally happy with the result! And I hope you like it just as much!

I’m working on a new project – a cushion cover!
I’m finally trying out a colour combination that I’ve wanted to try for a long time. The inspiration comes from a cushion I have from IKEA. It is a mixture of green and blue tones, with a yellow undertone in the green shades. And again I wanted to try a random colour placement.

I’m still a long way from having finished it. But so far I like it so much that I wanted to show it off!

My Colours

Stylecraft Special DK

1822 – Pistachio
1027 – Khaki
1065 – Meadow
1725 – Sage
1820 – Duck Egg

I opted for a similar design to the Happy Circles wall hangings I made last year. Do you remember them? You can find the free pattern here or on Ravelry.

Back then I used 15 different colours and created the random arrangement of the colours with a random generator. And I was totally happy with the result!

If you are interested in the process of my colour placement you will find all information in this post.

Random colour placement

After the random colour placement worked so well last year, I wanted to use the same method for the cushion cover.

Well…

Using a random generator

I have to admit that using a random generator didn’t work out so well this time.

I guess it has to do with how a randomiser works. This is a very complex topic – at least that’s how it seems to me. And that’s why I don’t want to go into it any further here. But if you are interested in this topic you can read about it on the Random.org website. I used their list generator for my purposes.

Anyhow, as a result of the random generator, my colours were – of course – not evenly distributed. By this I mean that the colours used occurred in different numbers. No matter how often or in what order I entered the colours, one colour always appeared very often and the others very little.

So, using only 5 colours therefore led to an imbalance – at least in my eyes.

I think when more colours are used, this will not even be noticeable. And with a larger project, such as a blanket, it can even look very nice if one colour is more dominant than the others.

However, I didn’t like it at all on the relatively small cushion cover.

Creating my own randomness

After several attempts I decided to create my own ‘randomness’ with a more balanced distribution of colours.

To do this, I made a table in which I first entered the colours for the first round of my circles. The letters A – E are the placeholders for my 5 colours.

I would like to design the front of my cushion cover with 4 x 4, i.e. 16 squares in total.

Therefore, I decided to start 4 circles with colour A and 3 circles each with one of the other 4 colours. That makes a total of 16.

To determine the colours for the second round, I started at the first square with colour B and entered the colours consecutively downwards. To avoid two rounds having the same colour, I skipped the relevant letter in these cases. For example, in Square 6, the correct order should have been B in Round 2, but I skipped to C, etc. Afterwards I did the same for round 3, starting with the letter C.

This is the result:

From circles to squares

I then assigned the 5 colours that I had chosen to the letters A – E:

A – Duck Egg
B – Meadow
C – Sage
D – Pistachio
E – Khaki

As with my wall hangings, I then turned the circles into squares. For this I added two more rounds in 1005 Cream, also from Stylecraft Special DK.

Creating a layout

Similar to my wall hangings, I created the final layout with the random generator.

I entered the digits 1 – 16 (which stand for the 16 squares) into the list generator of random.org and generated a random result. According to the this result, I arranged the squares on the places 1 -16 in the 4 x 4 layout, made a few more changes until I liked it, and voilà …

The two grids on the left show the places numbered from 1 -16 (the small one) and the numbers of the squares that were arranged on this places. On the right is the finished layout …

And, to make things a little easier:
Below my detailed list of the colours used for the circles for each round and the corresponding layout.

Final colour scheme and layout

Joining the squares

Currently I am working on the join…

For my wall hangings, I had opted for a relatively inconspicuous joining method in the colour of the squares. In comparison, I now use Pistachio, so it’s more of a contrasting colour. And I opted for the Zig Zag Slip Stitch Join.

I really like how it turns out!

After joining, I will probably have to make a few more rounds around the whole panel to achieve the desired size.

However, I’m still not sure what the back should look like. Single coloured or colourful? I think I’m leaning towards single-coloured, but that could still change …

Have a great start to the new week 💕

Tag: Cushion cover

Happy Circles II – A new pattern