The Admiralty

Hello hello Holla Knits lovers. It's blog tour day!

Let's talk about my pattern from the Holla Knits Home Collection. I designed a 3-D ship's helm pillow, because why not. It's called The Admiralty, and you can check it/buy it out here on the Holla Knits website.

If you've been reading this blog for awhile, then I think you'll already know about my love of all things Nautical. It's a real problem for me. Examples.

This is just one of my nautical art pieces. It lives in the dining room. 

A subset of my nautical jewelry. Really, I have more.

A portion of my nautical clothes. I really love stripes. And, uh, navy.

And of course, my living room. I have so very many nautical pillows. Most of them I made after we moved to Delaware last year, because we got that gray couch, and gray is easier to work into a navy-white-and-lots-of-stripes theme than our old tan couch was. When I saw the call for submissions for the Holla Knits Home Collection this past spring, my brain went, "Ship's helm pillow. Round out the couch collection." I honestly thought there was no way that the editor would go for it, but apparently she and I have the same weirdnesses going on. So here we are. A knitted ship's helm pillow. 

Construction was a bit tricky to figure out, but in the end I got it. Like my previous Holla Knits pattern (the Everett Henley, bane of lace sweater knitters everywhere), the difficulty is a little high. You should already know how, or at least be willing to learn quickly, to do intarsia, Kitchener stitch, mattress stitch, and small-diameter knitting in the round. The black circle is your starting point. Each spoke is its own intarsia wedge. After knitting all six you seam them together, then join them on one long circular to knit the edging. You make two of the same, then Kitchener those babies together with a pillow form inside. The handle parts of the spokes are stuffed and sewn on.  

Please, please, someone with a little boy needs to design a pirate-themed room for him and knit this. I am begging someone. I want to see that so badly. 

So, there we are. Knitted ship's helm pillow. If you want to check out the other stops on the blog tour for this collection, here you go. 

July 7: Launch

July 8: The Sweatshop of Love

July 9: Jean Chung

July 10: Emily Ringleman

July 11: Klever Knits

July 14: Canary Knits

July 15: Louet Blog

July 16: Laura McDougal

July 17: Knits in Class

My living room is all kinds of nautical.

My nautical quilt is done. As are two new nautical pillows.

I started the quilt probably two months ago, when we were still in California. In the process of quilting it, I sucked. I figured that the best way to go about it would be to start from the corner and quilt my way to the middle, then flip it and start from the opposite corner. This works if you've made a good, well-pinned quilt sandwich. I did not. I ended up with about an inch of extra fabric in the middle. So I put the quilt in a box, put that box in another box and mailed the box to myself. When it arrived... no just kidding, I packed it in the Uhaul. My new sewing room is quite a bit smaller than my old one, so I'm trying to make a solid effort to not have UFOs around, because they take up space, so I put in some time with my seam ripper and took out quite a bit of the quilting, then re-pinned and did it all again. I bound the quilt in some Coral and Salmon Kona with a bit of whale fabric mixed in, just for funsies.

The quilted pillow I also started in CA, when I was supposed to be packing my craft room. I used four colors of blue and some white to make four panels, then sewed them together with the darkest blue towards the middle. I did what I think is called matchstick quilting? Or is that even closer together than what I did? Regardless, it took forever to quilt this thing. Can't imagine doing it on a whole quilt. So I finished the pillow front in CA, then did the rest here in Delaware. I put in an invisible zipper in both pillows. AND I finished the seam allowances nicely on the inside. I'm trying really hard to become a legit seamstress who makes nice things.

That sailboat pillow? First of all, love. Got it at Joann's in the home decor section. I have enough fabric left to make at least one more pillow, which I may or may not do... because I was thinking shorts. Would that be too much?