The second pattern in the Seasons of Lace – Winter KAL is based on the following Swedish Fairy Tale. This shawl will be knit out of 1 skein of Serenity Silk III from Zen Yarn Garden in the colourway Woodsy – especially created for this project.
Illustration: John Bauer, 1913
Have you ever been in the deep dark forests and seen one of those black strange tarns hidden there? A little bit magical, and almost frightening? All is still, and the trees are growing close and silently. Down by the water the moss is growing, and even further down are some small white flowers, leaning on slender stalks over the water. Suddenly a large elk comes through the trees towards the shore. He stops and gazes at the flowers and the dark depths of the tarn. After a few moments he continues on his path into the forest. If the trees could speak, they would tell the following tale.
A long time ago, Princess Cottongrass lived in the Dream Castle, with her father the King and her mother the Queen. Princess Cottongrass was a beautiful blond and slender girl, and she had spent her entire life in the castle. One day when she was playing in the fields a large elk wandered by. “Who are you with such a splendid crown?” asked the princess. “I am Long-Leap the Elk.” “Please carry me into the world and let me see the life outside the castle.” Long-Leap hesitates, warning the princess that the world is dark and dangerous, but the Princess is certain he can protect her, and climbs onto his back and holds onto his antlers. Long-Leap carries her into the forest towards his home.
As they pass through a meadow, Princess Cottongrass sees someone dancing in the distance. “Who are they?” she asks. “They are fairies. But take care, they cannot be trusted. Hold on to my antlers or they may take you away.” Princess Cottongrass promises, but the fairies come closer and closer. They pull on her dress, and tug on her hair, and suddenly Princess Cottongrass’ golden crown starts sliding from her head. She tries to hold on to it but the fairies are too strong, and soon the crown is gone. Long-Leap carries her away from the fairies, but Princess Cottongrass is devastated to have lost her crown. “It could have been so much worse, had you let go of my antlers” says Long-Leap.
They find some soft moss and stay to rest. In the morning Princess Cottongrass wakes up, eager to explore the woods. In the distance she sees something moving between the trees. A couple of white arms waving, and a long, green hair. “Who is that?” asks the princess. “It is the Lady of the Forest. Be pleasant to her, but do not let go of my antlers, whatever you do, or she will enchant you and you will never get out of this forest” answers Long-Leap. The Lady of the Forest comes closer and asks where Princess Cottongrass is from. “I come from the Dream Castle.” “And what a lovely dress you are wearing, may I see?” “Of course” answers the princess and holds out the hem of the dress with one hand. But no sooner had she done that, than the Lady of the forest snatches the entire dress from her and takes off through the trees. “My dress, my dress” cries the Princess. “Oh why did you have to let go of my antlers to show the dress?” asks Long-Leap. “Had you let go with both hands you would have had to go with her, and then you would never have returned.”
The Princess is naked now, but for a gold chain holding her heart, and her long flowing hair.
Soon, the Princess and the Elk come to a dark tarn in the deepest part of the forest. “Hold on, there are dangers lurking in the waters.” But Princess Cottongrass is already on the shore looking into the water. As she leans close, her gold heart slips off and disappears into the tarn. The Princess is inconsolable and looks and looks into the water to see if she can find her heart. The Elk asks her to come, but the enchantment already has her in its grip, and she doesn’t notice anything around her.
Many years have passed, but still Princess Cottongrass gazes longingly into the tarn, looking for her heart. The girl is gone – by now she is just a flower, bearing the Cottongrass name. A small white flower at the edge of the pool. Now and then the Elk comes to visit. Pauses for a moment and looks at the little one. He is the only one who knows who she is. Cottongrass – the princess. But she no longer wants to follow him back into the world – not for as long as the enchantment binds her. The enchantment lies far beneath the surface. On the bottom of the pool lies a lost heart – a heart of gold.
We have all grown up hearing fairy tales of different varieties – some from our parents and grandparents, some in school, some in books and some that have been turned into films. Fairy tales come in many forms, but the one thing they have in common is that they capture our imagination and try to teach us something about life.
I have always been fond of fairy tales, and my favourite versions have never been the happy, bubbly Disney stories, but the darker, older fairy tales where the wicked get their comeuppance. These fairy tales are best told in the evenings in front of a warm fire, while the icy winds howl outside. And couldn’t you just imagine yourself in front of that fire, listening to the fairy tales while knitting?
With that in mind, I decided to design a series of three lace shawls on the theme of Fairy Tales that will be released during the winter months as a KAL (knitalong). I choose three fairy tales from different parts of the world. In the first month, I thought we should visit Russia. The first story is about Marushka (the entire fairy tale can be read here).
Inspired by Marushka’s story, I designed a triangular lace shawl in a pale green colour called Silver Pine that reminds me of frozen pine trees in the deep of winter. The central motif on the shawl shows Marushka’s wispy tracks through the snow, as she’s trudging back and forth between her evil stepsister and the twelve kings. The edging around the shawl alternates between the spring flowers/violets that Marushka was asked to bring, and clusters of wild strawberries. The strawberries are also clustered in such a way that from a distance the clusters look like ripe apples.
The shawl is triangular and knit from side to side. The size is adjustable in the pattern, and the shawl could be knit in either lace weight or fingering weight yarn.
The pattern is available as part of the Winter portion of Seasons of Lace – the Fairy Tale KAL.
I find that when I work on projects I tend to work on three or so in parallel. And they often finish all around the same time. True to form, I have finished several projects in the past few days, and I just don’t have enough space to block them. One at a time, one at a time.
And then this phase of finishing projects is of course followed by a period of planning new ones and casting on like mad. The last of the batch for the wips that are being finished is a lace shawl in Nimbus Cloud from Slackford Studio. This one has actually been with me for a lot longer than usual. You see, sometimes designs just flow, and the yarn knits up into something amazing right away. And sometimes it doesn’t work that way. I think I originally cast on with this yarn in September. At the time I was planning on making a sister-shawl to my Eyjafjallajökull shawl, so I was calling it Katla for one of the smaller Icelandic volcanos. The True Blood coloruway could have been lava streams, and I was envisioning the lava flowing down towards the edge of the shawl. I knit a bit more than half the new design and decided I just didn’t like the way it turned out. So I frogged.
Then I decided to change the theme entirely and started working on a Raspberry Patch. Ripe raspberry vines peaking out through a diamond patterned fence. Because the True Blood colourway could also be sun-ripened raspberries on a warm summer day. I knit about three quarters of that design and…. well…. I’m picky. I didn’t like it. So I frogged.
And *then* I had a stroke of genius. Or something. 
In any case, I charted my new design, cast on for the third time on the very last day of November, and now I only have about 3 rows left to knit. I like it. Blocking should commence as soon as the current shawl being blocked is dry.
I also cast on for a square shawl using LouLou from Land O Lace. Square shawls are fun to make, but I have to admit that I find the first few rows very fiddly. Still, I’m past that now, and that means that I actually have a project that is at the beginning stages of the knitting again. I expect I’ll start a couple more within a week, and then I’ll have another blocking extravaganza in January sometime.
LouLou is a laceweight yarn in alpaca/cashmere/silk blend, and the colour I’m using is a pale lilac called Royalton. Coincidentally both LouLou and Nimbus Cloud are 70% alpaca, 10% cashmere, 20% silk, but of course the two yarns are different weights. Nimbus Cloud is a fingering weight, and LouLou a 2/24 laceweight. Both lovely yarns though – soft, and with a halo.
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