I had a blast making Hannah Fettig’s Bird’s Nest Pincushion to celebrate my friend Adrienne’s birthday.
Though the pattern calls for DK weight yarn, I wanted the nest to have a fairly solid structure to it. Also, I wanted the eggs to have a tight fabric to keep the fiberfill from showing. I chose worsted weight yarns, and knit them on the needle size from the pattern.
Both yarns are souveniers of the Great Portland Yarn Crawl a couple of weeks ago. Kilcarra of Donegal Aran Tweed came from Dublin Bay and lends a twiggy look to the nest. Some luscious Shi Bui Merino Alpaca from Knit Purl has just the right blue shades for eggs. (Expect to see the Shi Bui again in some future design – I fell in love it!)
The nest is knitted in a delightful cable pattern. Once it was complete, I looked around for a way to block it so it would have a flat bottom when done. Voila! A juice glass was just the ticket to make it the right size around. I added a cereal bowl …
And Ta-Da! The nest has a nice flat bottom (which I wish I could relate to) and sits flat, rather than rocking around.
I hope Adrienne likes her nest. She’s a fantastic seamstress, so it should be useful as a pincushion as she sews. If not, she can always decorate a tree with it!
If you want to check out Hannah’s book “Closely Knit”, you can find it here.
Another great gift, Audrey. I’ll remember the blocking trick too.
Audrey, my gift is just lovely and so much appreciated because of the time and care you put into it. A very innovative way to block the “bird’s nest.”
So cute, love it!
Looks awesome!