The Armchair Traveller's Cushion Cover

I have a crochet cushion cover pattern for you today. I'm calling it Armchair Traveller. I hope you'll like it and make it your own.

My Armchair Traveller's Cushion takes you to an ancient place. 

I have woven into my Celtic Tartan the colours of Credenhill Camp. It's the second largest iron age Hill Fort in Britain and it just happens to be up the road from me. It's a place of magic and refuge. What more could you ask from a cushion!!

Standing sentry at the hill top are a ring of Yew trees with their roots dug deep into the red soil of Herefordshire.

So let me tell you a bit about the pattern. It uses Surface Crochet, and is hopefully just the first pattern using this technique that I will produce for you. If you weren't following my series of blogs post Here is a link to the first one.

For the first pattern I've started off simply with a traditional stitch pattern. You'll find something similar in Betty Barnden's 'Handbook of Crochet Stitches'.  I actually tried really hard to come up with something else, but there's a reason why these traditional patterns continue to be used! Despite ending up with a huge pile of swatches, I eventually went with a few gentle tweaks.
 
The best feature is the yarn itself and for that we have to bless those clever people at Scheepjes. I have used two different weights of yarn, two different sized hooks but the same glorious colours. I've used the Sport weight to create the filet base and the Aran to surface crochet on top. This has given me a thick, yet light weight, soft comforting cushion.The first thing you'll want to do when you finish your cushion is just sit and cuddle it.

  
I have used Scheepjes Stone Washed which comes in those two different weights but the same colour range. It has a white cotton core which sparkles through the gem like acrylic colour. I expect you have your own favourite place and colour choice so if you can't find the colours you want in that yarn you can also look at their River Washed yarn. It also comes in the same two weights, Sport and Aran. This time the yarn has a coloured cotton core which really glows through the acrylic layer.
 
After all those swatches I mentioned, I decided to work the surface crochet into a Back Bump Treble Filet Base  [DC-USA]. The back bump stitches do a number of things. Firstly they slightly reduce the height of the trebles leaving a nice square gap to surface crochet into. Secondly they stack the Trebles neatly on top of one another, ensuring our chain stitches form up in nice orderly rows. Thirdly they twist the tops of the stitches forward creating a mock line of surface chain.

So what do I mean by Back Bump Stitches?When we talk about working into the Back Bump of chain stitches we're merely referring to that third loop at the bottom. By working into this loop it turns the chain stitch upside down.
When we talk about the Back Bump on other stitches we're talking about that little horizontal bump at the top of the 'post', on the back.
Insert the hook down from top to bottom. Like all things crochet, it's fiddly to start with but you'll quickly get the hang of it.
 I've also tried really hard to reduce the number of ends you have to sew in. We start by stitching in the round and then later we join the tube at one end to cut the number of surface crochet 'ends' by half.

CLICK HERE! for the free down-loadable PDF. I'd love to see your finished designs on Ravelry and hear about the places your armchairs take you to!