How a Little Stitching Makes a Big Difference on a Project

A couple of weeks ago I shared a really simple pillow cover pattern that is mostly Stockinette Stitch. As you know, Stockinette Stitch is just a big old blank canvas that you can embellish in a ton of different ways, such as:

knitting stripes instead of a solid color
working in some simple colorwork
sewing on buttons for decorative purposes
adding embroidery
working duplicate stitch on the surface

It’s the first and the last option that Mom Made Blog used to turn that basic pattern into a watermelon cushion. It’s so cute and it only takes a few minutes to add those little “seeds” and it’s not any more difficult to work in those stripes to make a super cute cushion.

This is a great lesson in embellishment and how just taking a little time to think about how you could fancy up a basic project can make a big difference.

How have you embellished basic knitting projects before? I’d love to hear your ideas.

[Photo via Mom Made Blog.]

Next Pattern:

I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

Next Pattern:

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