Posy

I’ve always loved the extreme increase and decrease moves you see in Estonian lace patterns. I remember first coming across them in the Laminaria pattern, a really excellent free lace shawl pattern published in Knitty way back in 2008. Knitting that pattern began my interest in this sort of lace.

Designing lace is always a bit of a journey. I think the Posy shawl started with a round lace pattern from Barbara Walker’s Treasuries (but I’m not 100% sure). From that starting point I swatched and tested many iterations. I imagined a field of flowers, some with buds tightly closed, then enlarging with the vivacious living energy of spring and sunlight, until they burst open into the beautiful organic shapes of blooms.

This shawl is a narrow crescent that’s nice and long. This means it’s very easy to wear as a scarf. This is the sort of shawl that I tend to be most comfortable wearing day-to-day, as it simply wraps around and looks great without any fussing required.

sister shawls – different yarns create distinct effects

The two finished Posy shawls have quite different qualities, which brings me a lot of pleasure! Made in a single-ply lace, the pattern is sharply defined. Julie Asselin’s Nurtured fine yarn holds a block beautifully, it has this crisp, papery, and slightly stiff quality that really makes the structure of the pattern itself shine.

After knitting several versions of the Love Note sweater, I became more and more obsessed with the joys of combining sock yarn with mohair lace (more on combining these yarns here). The painterly exploration of colour you could enjoy when layering one colour over another was just fascinating, so decided that making another sample that utilized this yarn combination was a solid plan!

On the right are the skeins of La Bien Aimee singles in ‘romance’ and the mohair silk in ‘yellow brick road’

Knit in mohair & single ply, the shawl is much floppier and soft than its crisp and structured cousin. It is a soft warm hug around your neck, bringing a lot of warmth for its ephemeral weight. The lace is not as crisp, of course, but it has a subtle beauty nonetheless. I love both of these shawls, which do you prefer?