'Baled Up' knitting set

Do you remember this teaser from a few posts ago? This was a clue to my most recent project in last April's issue of Australian Homespun magazine.

This project was borne of my childhood memories of woolsheds and stencilling wool bales at shearing time. It ended up as a three-piece knitting set called 'Baled Up'. Homespun did a really lovely job of the styling; very country meets city!

Initially, this idea took form when I was brain-storming about gifts I could make for my brothers. I had intended to make cushions for them and I wanted to stencil the names of our childhood properties on linen, in a similarly rustic way as we stencilled on our wool bales.

When Homespun asked me to submit a project for their magazine, I decided to broaden this initial concept. And so, from a vague germ of an idea, spawned not only a stencilled cushion, but a wool caddy and a knitting needle roll.

And so Madam Knitter, you may sit at your 'knitting chair', with your personalised cushion warming your back. The caddy is designed to sit by your chair and hold your wool. It is fashioned to look a little like a wool bale. It is fully lined and has inner pockets to hold scissors, a tape measure, or in my case, my glasses :)

The needle roll unfolds to reveal various sized individual pockets for all your needles, crochet hooks, gauges etc.

This project was published in Australian Homespun No. 131 in April 2014. The magazine is available as a digital download through Zinio. And no, my brothers still haven't got their cushions!