Knitted Cushion Cover for Armchair or Garden Chair
~ Excerpted from Beeton’s Book of Needlework, first published 1870.
Materials:
Messrs. Walter Evans and Co.’s knitting cotton No. 12; eight ply fleecy wool.
This cushion (15 inches wide, 12 inches high) is made of grey calico; it is covered on one side with knitting, worked with grey crochet cotton. The knitted cover has an open-work pattern, worked backwards and forwards on a number of stitches which can be divided by 2, and which must suit the width of the cushion, in the following manner:–
1st row: Alternately throw the cotton forward, knit 2 together.
2nd row: Slip 1, knit the other stitches. The stitch formed by throwing the cotton forward is knitted as 1 stitch.
3rd row: Knit 1, * throw the cotton forward, knit 2 together. Repeat from *; after the last decreasing knit 1.
4th row: Like the 2nd row.
These four rows are repeated till the cover is sufficiently large. Draw a narrow piece of red worsted braid through every other open-work row of the pattern, as can be seen in illustration 341. When the cushion has been covered with the knitting, it is edged all round with a border knitted the long way, in the above-mentioned open-work pattern; it is 14 rows wide, and also trimmed with worsted braid; a fringe of grey cotton and red wool, 3 1/4 inches wide, is sewn on underneath the border at the bottom of the cushion; to this is added a thick red worsted cord, by which the cushion is hung on over the back of an arm-chair. The cushion, on account of its simplicity, is especially suitable for garden chairs.
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