I first saw this cushion on a preview advert for a new pattern book for Patons Fab DK. Before I got round to sending for the whole booklet, the cushion and its matching children's cardigan showed up in the Irresistible Gifts to Knit supplement to September's Simply Knitting magazine. Handy non?
I feel a bit guilty about it but I decided to eschew the Patons Fab DK yard for two reasons. One, I didn't have any and my stash is getting out of control. Two, Fab Dk is 100% acrylic and so doesn't meet my yarn snob 50% wool criterion.
Instead, I decided to use some Artesano Hummingbird DK in Woodpecker, which is 100% alpaca and variegates through red, orange, yellow and green. I got it as a magazine subscription gift and have been looking for something nice to use it for as there's no way I could make the sock pattern it came with. For the alien's plain red arms and legs I used some Rowan Pure Wool DK I had in stash.
The cushion is knitted flat on 3.25mm needles and hence has taken me about three weeks to complete, which is an eternity for me. You make two body pieces and four arms and legs. I had serious motivational issues making the second body piece, which is why I'm not sure I'll ever knit socks. The body was fairly straightforward with some simple shaping and division for the eye stalks.
The arms and legs were pretty quick to make. I sewed them up with mattress stitch and then stuffed them prior to sandwiching them between the body parts for the final making up. I opted to back stitch the two halves of the body together as I find mattress stitch on shaped pieces difficult, plus I needed to sew in the arms and legs firmly. I left a gap at the bottom and stuffed with what felt like endless amounts of toy filler, before mattress stitching the gap up neatly.
The pattern used felt for the eyes but the templates weren't included so I decided to give that a miss and use two large plastic buttons I had purchased recently. My husband agreed with me that the mouth design from the pattern didn't really work so I decided to add a felt heart applique instead. I appreciate this is not functionally the same but I thought it was more atheistically pleasing.I sewed the heart on with oordinary pink sewing thread, overcoming my lazy instinct to glue it on.
The finished cushion is cute if a little odd. The Artesano alpaca yarn is really lovely so I'm glad I trusted my instincts on that one. I'm off to knit something nice and chunky now...
Melx
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