Days at Buttermilk Cottage: Celtic Braid

Monday, May 16, 2011

Making a Celtic Braid (Knitted) Pillow

I’ve just finished this Celtic Braid Pillow and thought I’d share the steps to make one.

My beginning inspiration is this book.

Inside are twenty classic Celtic designs. Only half a pattern is shown in the book. Once the design choice was made, I made four copies of one page of the pattern.

Then, these four pages are rotated, overlapped and taped together making one full pattern.

A lightweight cotton blend fabric is cut to a dimension a bit larger than the pattern.

The fabric is then placed on top of the pattern for tracing.

The pattern is then pencil traced onto the fabric.

Now it’s time to knit I-Cord, lots and lots of I-Cord.

Next comes the appliqué of the cord to the fabric on top of the sketched design.

I like to do this is small segments and pin as I go.

One stitch at a time, it’s coming!

My cord is now complete. The interesting thing about Celtic braid, is there is no ending or beginning, and the braid crosses “over and under “ itself consistently.

Next the finished top is placed on a thin batting and another square of more fabric. Then an outline is hand quilted all around the braid.

Here’s the backside once all the quilting is done.

Now I’m ready to make the pillow. I cut two pieces of the same fabric for an overlapped back. Because my fabric is fairly fine weight, I am folding each in half, with the fold toward the center, so there’s no need for an edge hem.

Here’s the second half pinned in place.

I’ve now machine stitched all the way around my pillow.

Now it’s time to bring out the object of the love/hate of my life…my serger. Because I only use my serger for certain, specific jobs, I don’t use it everyday. So, if it decides to misbehave, I’m somewhat at a loss. Let me just say this about sergers…when they’re good…they’re very, very good. When they’re bad…they’re horrid!!!