In a previous post I mentioned that I'm not very fond of bobbles. Well, seeing this shawl by Rod on Flickr reminded me of my natural white Viva and the fact that I've only knitted a swatch or two testing a couple of patterns in Nancy Bush's book Knitted Lace of Estonia.
This is half a star, the Crown Prince pattern. I like it very much that the bobbles are fairly flat; the combination of them and the lace holes of roughly the same size is very appealing too, in my opinion.
Here's a photo of the shawl, made by Knitting Soo on Flickr. It's very pretty, but I can't help thinking about possible modifications... A frame consisting of rows of holes instead of garter stitch, for example.
Getting the tension right for the bobbles was a bit tricky, but didn't take very long after all. I've had more trouble with the tension in the stocking-stitch areas: for example, getting the loops for a bobble (a "nupp" in Estonian) loose enough tends to rub off on the surrounding stitches - and purling all the loops making a single stitch tends to make me purl the surrounding stitches too tight.
I enjoy knitting this kind of pattern a lot, primarily because it's something I haven't done before. (A tiny swatch about a year ago hardly counts.) Also, dear old wool-silk blend Viva is a delight to work with, and the sheen of it makes the bobbles almost look like pearls in daylight. Not captured in this photo due to severe lack of daylight.
7 comments:
What a nice pattern!
Beautiful lace patterns on the links and here too.
It looks beautiful! Is nupp really an Estonian word?
Thank you, all!
Carolina: yes, the book says it's Estonian for button. An appropriate word, I think!
I too did not enjoy nupps. That is until an old Estonian lady taught me how she did them. She actually prepared the nupp on the row before (on the wrong side) and on the right side she knitted the loops "through the back loop" to create the nupp. I find this much easier than purling the nupps. The only thing is that it's sometimes difficult to remember to prepare the nupp on the row before...
I used this method when I did a very nuppy shawl indeed: view photo
Good luck, I look forward to seeing the finished result!
That's a great idea! But isn't it tricky to see where to make the nupp (apart from remembering to make it in the first place?)
Anyway, it's definitely something I'll have to try - thanks!
I think it was not too tricky, once you've made the first nupp or yarn over... You kind of see the pattern when started. But it's a trade-off no matter which way you go. I'd definately go for the Estonian lady method if there were many nupps... If fewer and more dispersed, I might consider the purling...
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