Around, and Around, and Around I go

I'm knitting another blanket.  This time to go with my new soft furnishings in the living room.  My lovely mum made new covers for my sofa, and helped me make some smart scatter cushions, in this fabulous teal green and brown stripe fabric.   The brown body fabric is the original sofa cover.  We covered only the seat and back cushions, taking the original covers apart and re-using the piping cord and the zipper units, so that the colour of the sofa body was carried through. The scatter cushions also incorporate the same fabric, as I cut up some of the pieces of the old cushions to make the scatter cushions.  I was inspired by a scatter back sofa I saw in a store, which was too large for my room, so I decided to give my own sofa a new look in homage to the sofa I'd seen.  The original sofa had a curved end that formed a curl up area. In place of that, and more practically, I plan to buy a fabric covered foot stool from Ikea.  The lid lifts off to provide secret storage for yarn and sewing projects, and it comes with a plain calico cover, designed to be recovered to go with your room.  I have enough fabric left to cover the stool with the same fabric as the sofa, with maybe some brown trim, thus providing a chaise longue type effect when required, and an extra seating place when people come to visit. 

I even had enough fabric ( I rather over estimated the yardage) to re-cover my huge bean bag to match.  But I forgot to take a photo of that.  And in any event, I'm not totally sure that I can really call it MY bean bag any more.  Always popular with my dog, once I'd topped up the filling and made a smart new cover, I couldn't get her off it.  She virtually lives in it and if I dare to sit on it, she comes along and pokes and prods at me until I move enough to give her room to get up on it, then puts her back against me and pushes me until she has most of the beanbag at which point I normally give up and go somewhere else. 

The blanket is knitted in the round, in stripes, but because there are four paired increases, the result is a square blanket.  I'm doing alternating stripes of pink, green, brown, green, pink, green etc, etc.  which I hope will echo the striped nature of the sofa cover.  I took this photo a few days ago and the blanket is now about the size of a large table mat (it was coaster sized here).  I have a LONNNNNNG way to go before it will be blanket sized, but its chunky wool on 6mm needles so hopefully it won't be too time consuming to knit.  I really want it done quickly as its supposed to protect the new sofa cover from hairy dog feet, so I am plugging away at it with determination.  The yarn is acrylic so should be very hard wearing and washable.  (its James C Brett Marble Chunky yarn for those who are interested).