Niebling Ring Pillow

I recently finished a small project for the wedding: I knitted a ring pillow cover, inspired by a pattern inspired by Herbert Niebling! Originally, this pattern is for a small lace bag, and it was published in the Piecework of May/June 2010. I liked the looks of it already for a long time, but didn’t really see the use of such a fragile bag. Then it came to me: why not close up the top and make it a cover for something?

I used Judy’s magic cast on for the beginning of the bag. Then I knitted according to the pattern until just after the purl rows at the top. I blocked the bag on a piece of cardboard covered in plastic, keeping the stitches live on my 1.5mm circular needles.

I sewed a little pillow, a tiny bit bigger (about half a centimeter) across than the coardboard, stuffed it, sewed it closed, and when the knitting was dry, I put the pillow in there and kitchenered the top together. Somehow, I find kitchener stitch extremely soothing to do.

Then, I knitted the drawstring, but a bit different. At the end of the leaf, I decreased to have only 3 stitches on the needles, and started knitting icord for a while. When knitting icord, I used 2 KnitPro carbon dpns, because then I wouldn’t have to move the stitches back and forth between the needles. When the icord was long enough for my taste, I pulled it through the middle hole under the flower with the help of a crochet hook, and then I started knitting the second leaf. I added a little purple bow to finish it off (my wedding colours are ivory with a hint of purple). I’m so pleased with the result! I just love really fine lace knitting!