A few years ago, I got caught up in the hype of Game of Thrones, but instead of watching the show, I decided to go back to the books. After reading A Song of Ice and Fire, I introduced them to my sister, who has now far surpassed my level of enjoyment for the story. So, I was excited to make this pillow for her when I stumbled upon it on Geek Crafts. There are eight downloadable graphs for different ASOIAF house sigils on I Crochet Things. My sister selected houses Baratheon and Lannister, and I set to work learning Tunisian crochet for the pattern. For several months, I put off working on the pillow and continued to work on other projects, until I finally finished the Baratheon Stag and came to a realization: I do not like Tunisian crochet. It is much more like knitting than crochet, took me significantly longer, and made my hands much more tired. On top of that, it did not turn out like I hoped, due to my lack of experience with this stitch. I’m sure it would look better with practice, but I was on a deadline [sister’s birthday] and didn’t have time for practice.

So, I scrapped the Tunisian crochet, and decided to find another method of completing this pillow. To be able to use the yarn and hooks I already had, I decided on intarsia, which is a great sc method of crocheting graphs. I completed both sides of the new pillow in just a couple of days, compared to the months of procrastinating the Tunisian stitch.

The sides were completed with a 5.0 mm (US H) hook, and then attached with a border of sc, one in each stitch and three in the corners. It was stuffed with 100% Polyester Stuffing.