Spring Things and Estonian Lace Swatch

Presenting Spring Things (now blocked)!






I used beads instead of the nupps and I think the effect is rather nice.


Specs: Knitted in Rowan Kid Silk Haze, Dewberry colourway on 4.5mm needles. Finished size was larger than in the pattern which is what I wanted and, after blocking, is 66" x 33". The beads are size 6 raspberry lined crystal AB from Earth Faire.

I haven't really got anything against nupps though as you can see by this photo!


I'm helping out with knitting swatches for the Estonian Lace Study and this is my first one completed and blocked. The swatches are from an Estonian book, 'Pitsilised Koekirjad' which contains charts for the most amazing Estonian lace patterns.

The book, of course, isn't in English and the chart symbols are not as we know them but with the help of this translation and the book itself, they can be understood. I love the way Estonian lace combines the openness and airiness of the lace with the textural effect of the nupps, etc. The swatches can be quite big when finished (this one is 13" x 12.5") as there need to be enough stitch and pattern repeats to fully illustrate how each pattern will look when knitted. This is a problem in the original book which contains poor quality black and white photos that appear to be too zoomed in on just one area in a lot of the patterns so it's difficult to get a good idea of the finished result. I've learnt a lot already by just knitting this one swatch. The most complicated rows in this particular pattern are the ones with the nupps and cables in the same row. I did 9 stitch nupps worked over two rows and the cables required working with two cable needles at the same time, one at the front of the knitting needle and one at the back. I'm actually finding it rather enjoyable!