I wanted a bold, graphic look for my 16 x 16 pillow cover, so I manipulated the original chart design elements found in Ornaments And Patterns Found In Iceland book to heighten the graphic effect:

I enlarged the “medallion” element 2-1/2 times, then wrapped it horizontally around the side of the pillow. Then I wrapped the daintier floral band vertically around the top and bottom of the pillow, at actual size.

So the front and back of the finished pillow cover are mirrored images.

I knitted my project using two stranded colors in the round, tacking the floats every 3 or 4 stitches for stability. This gives a softly quilted look to the finished pillow cover that I was careful not to block out.

I wanted shape and structure for the pillow, so I created “knit as you go” iCord faux seams for each side of the pillow, to look like traditional corded edges.

I bound off the top with a three-needle bind-off, worked with the wrong sides together, creating a raised seam across the top that matches the side cord seams.

The zipper is hidden in the bottom seam, so that the cover can easily be removed for cleaning.

I selected two heathered solid colors to match an existing piece of furniture in the room, using neutral Feather Grey for the background, and deep Persimmon for the foreground.

Resources:

Central medallion pattern is from an altar frontal originally dated 1617 from Háls Church in northern Iceland.

Complete charts can be found in Ornaments And Patterns Found In Iceland
Editors Birna Geirfinnsdóttir, Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon
Publisher Heimilisiðnaðarfélag Íslands, 2009
ISBN 9979705612, 9789979705611

Medallion from Icelandic needlepoint pattern shown here, in Canadian author Harold Rhenisch’s blog: http://afarminiceland.com/tag/norse-poetry/

Also available as a free download cross-stitch pattern, here: http://www.dragonbear.com/icepattern.html, worked from a picture in Elsa E. Guðjónsson’s Traditional Icelandic Embroidery (Reykjavík: Iceland Review, 1985).

Another adaptation published by Shannon Okey, here:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/icehouse