13th Street Pillow in Blue Sky Fibers Melange - Downloadable PDF

13th Street Pillow in Blue Sky Fibers Melange

Project Overview

The 13th Street Pillow is a knitted cushion cover designed by Elinor Brown and offered as a free downloadable pattern by Blue Sky Alpacas. This intermediate-level project combines colorwork techniques with a unique construction method, making it an engaging knitting project for crafters with some experience.

What Is Being Made

This pattern creates a decorative pillow cover featuring a knitted front face with charted colorwork design and a knitted back panel. The pillow is constructed by first knitting the front face, then picking up stitches around all sides to knit the back panels directly onto the completed front. The two back panels meet approximately two-thirds up the back of the pillow and are fastened together with buttons, allowing for a functional, removable cover.

Construction Techniques

The 13th Street Pillow employs several key knitting techniques:

• In-the-round knitting: The pillow face begins with a cast-on of 82 stitches worked in the round using circular needles, with careful attention to avoid twisting stitches at the join.
• Charted colorwork: The design uses a charted pattern worked in the round, with the first 9 stitches of every round designated for the steek (a reinforced opening area in colorwork knitting). Three full repeats of the chart are worked before completing the final stitch.
• Picked-up stitches: Rather than casting on separately, the back panels are created by picking up stitches along all four sides of the completed front face.
• Button closure: The two back panels button together, creating a practical envelope-style closure for the pillow cover.

Stitches and Stitch Techniques

This pattern primarily uses stockinette stitch as the foundation fabric, combined with two-color stranded colorwork to create the charted design on the pillow face. The steek technique—a method of creating a reinforced vertical opening in colorwork knitting—is incorporated into the pattern structure to manage the color changes and construction.

Materials and Tools

Yarn: The pattern calls for Blue Sky Alpacas Sport Weight or Melange yarn. Crafters will need 3 hanks of color A and 3 hanks of color B, with each hank containing 50 grams and 110 yards of yarn.

Needles: Size 5 (3.75 mm) circular needles measuring 29 or 32 inches are required for working the pillow face in the round. Size 5 (3.75 mm) double-pointed needles are also needed, or needles in the size required to obtain the correct gauge.

Difficulty and Experience Level

Rated as an intermediate project, this pillow is suitable for knitters who have experience with circular needle techniques, two-color stranded colorwork, and picking up stitches. The combination of in-the-round construction with charted colorwork and the unconventional back-panel construction method makes this an engaging intermediate challenge.