My apologies that this post is a little image-heavy, I am so happy with this photoshoot! It just screams Spring and I am absolutely delighted with those vibrant Daffodils in the background! Did you know that the Narcissus flower is the flower of the Greek underworld? It was the flower Persephone was picking when she was kidnapped by Hades and from then on sacred to the God of the underworld. It was said that the Narcissus flower grew alongside the river Styx. I have fully been swept away with the current renaissance of Greek mythology retellings in popular literature and I am not mad about it, so when I saw these flowers I knew I had to take photos here!
Now let’s get on to the actual knitting shall we? The pattern is Sari Nordlund’s Poetria Sweater and I am in love. I fell in love with this stitch pattern when I made her Poet socks pattern a couple of years ago, it appears I didn’t write a blog post on them but here is a picture of the pair I made:
The toes are cream because I was knitting the socks with the rust yarn scraps I had leftover from knitting this sweater and I ran out just as I was finishing the toes! I think the contrast toes look quite pretty and you can’t tell when the socks are in shoes anyway. Knitting these socks is when I really started to fall in love with knitting lace patterns, this one is so repetitive it’s easy to get in a rhythm but is also SO BEAUTIFUL. I bought the Poetria pattern soon after finishing these socks and then stalled – a whole sweater seemed intimidating, especially when so many of the knitters on Ravelry said they only knit the lace pattern on the front to make it easier.
I finally decided to pick up the pattern when I discovered this pairing of yarns in my stash. I bought several balls of the Wendy Air mohair when the Knitting Network was clearing it out at £1 a ball but when it arrived my husband asked if I was planning to knit a Grinch sweater and from then on I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I had the idea to pair it with this more grass green that I had in my stash and loved the way it marled together. The resulting green is so unusual and lovely!
Above: the two yarns I marled together. Below: the resulting colour.
I will add – I really wasn’t sure about adding mohair to this stitch pattern, I just couldn’t see how there would be enough stitch definition with all that fluff! It is what the pattern recommends – a 4ply yarn held with a laceweight mohair. I swatched and really wasn’t sure so I spent AGES looking at finished sweaters on both Ravelry and Instagram before deciding that I should trust the pattern as it looks good in all the other versions so I went ahead and cast on. I still wasn’t sure even after I had finished and blocked the sweater (!) but then I saw these pictures and you absolutely can see the stitch pattern so I think it must be me worrying for nothing! I do quite fancy knitting another one in DK without the mohair so I see the difference, it was so lovely to knit I would be glad to make another!
The sweater came together really quickly mostly because it was really addictive to knit. The pattern is so well written, there are little details throughout that you can tell were really well thought out – the purls from the lace pattern blending into the purls of the rib at the hem is one example. The pattern also gives recommendations of which rows in the chart to end on for an aesthetically pleasing result.
This stitch pattern is so gorgeous I am quite tempted to make the Poet shawl as well, and I have recently seen that Sari Nordlund is designing the Poetry pullover which has this stitch pattern down the sleeves as well as the front and back so maybe I will make that one instead of a second Poetria? I think I will forgo the mohair next time but I don’t have any DK in my stash so I will have to think about asking for some for my birthday!
What do you think? Do you like knitting lace?
Making and Books 