A few years ago, I discovered Ysolda Teague's Liesl pattern, and was immediately smitten. It's a genius design – a lacy, top-down cardigan that looks good on everyone, is easily adaptable to different yarn weights, and is simple enough that even a novice knitter can make a success of it.
Ysolda's design uses Feather and Fan lace throughout, creating a fabulously airy, rippled fabric. I made a couple of versions of the sweater. The first stayed pretty close to the original design, except that I suppressed the purl ridges in the body of the cardi, to keep a smoother line. The second Liesl that I made is featured today in the Modification Mondays section of designer Julie Crawford's blog.
The Green Liesl Pullover came about because I wanted a summery version of the sweater that retained the lacy details and the flow of the feather and fan, but that wouldn't need to be layered over another garment. To eliminate the peek-a-boo effect I changed the yarn-overs to backwards-loop m1s. This increase is nearly as fast to do as a yarn-over, and is a bit more open than some others, but it creates the opaque fabric I was looking for. Closing the holes also allowed for playing with stitch counts in the repeats to add bust and waist shaping.
I'm really pleased with the result. Casual and easy to throw on, the sweater still has the flair of the original design. And two years on, I'm still wearing it!
