I inherited from my sister an unopened (and discontinued) kit made by the Tsarina of Tsocks, Lisa Grossman, who died in 2015. It contained her pattern for Willow Ware socks, and two skeins of her wool/silk Tsilk Tstocking, one in Blue Willow and one in Natural.
I knew right away that I would make it into something for my youngest sister, who is taking my collection of our grandmother's willow ware off my hands when I move, and loves things blue-and-white. But she does not wear wool socks, even when deliciously mixed with silk. We decided on a pillow instead.
We went out for lunch, in the Before Time, and spread the charted patterns across the table, slowly rearranging them into a rough approximation of a square, which we then sketched in time-honored fashion on the back of a napkin.
I went home and made gauge swatches, settling on a US 0 (2.00 mm). I had decided that I wanted a smaller pillow than the last one I made for her. I did math, converted our notes and the separate charts into one single chart, and decided to convert the cuff patterns into a frame for the picture. Fans of willow ware will note that the configuration is missing one bird, which messes with the associated fable, but it's easy to find similar examples:
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| Tallrik, 1770 CC by SA 3.0 |
I decided on a simple two-color envelope back, fastened by five buttons. I found the perfect buttons in the Etsy shop GingerMintCollection. Since they came from Australia, they did not make it in time for Christmas, but have since arrived and been attached.
It was not until I was knitting the back that I realized how gently variegated the blue was. When I went back and added the embroidered detail to the front, it was fun to see the color shift on the willow leaves.
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| before embroidery |
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