In Love with Floresta: A Happy Convergence of Wool & Pattern
What is the defining quality of a successful knitting project? Is it in the level of execution of knitting skills used during construction? Or perhaps, the visual ‘hanger appeal’ of the final garment? Is it perhaps in the tangible, touchable, feel of a particular wool or yarn and the sensations on the skin? Or is it how particularly photogenic a knit garment might be, especially when these days ‘photogenic’ is defined, rather unfortunately for both the crafts of photography and knitting, as what is most ‘grammable’ or IG-worthy? My most recently completed jumper has taught me that none of the variables I’ve mentioned come close. For me, how successful a knit has been is determined entirely by its ‘reach-for’ effect.
“For me, how successful a knit has been is determined entirely by its ‘reach-for’ effect.”
Since I blocked and dried the Floresta, I’ve reached-for it more than any other wool jumper, hand-knitted or otherwise, in my winter closet. In fact, I often have to come up with excuses for why I “should just wear something else today”. You know, to give the Floresta a break, and find myself inexplicably changing into this vining-twining beauty halfway through the day. There’s no getting away from it. The Floresta is the Knit of the Year for me, and I would happily wear it as my only knit for the remainder of this depressingly mild winter we’re having.
Designed by Elena Sollier, the creator of Xollawool, Floresta is a top down, seamless, yoke jumper, with a split hem. She describes it as:
“Inspired by Rosa Canina brushes, the yoke of this sweater is full of flowers running around.The sweater is knitted seamlessly in the round from the top down and the body is gently oversized and slightly cropped.Floresta is designed with a splitted hem, slightly longer at back, and super long sleeves in mind.”
And yes, the sleeves are definitely longer than any of my other yoked knits, and is a subtle yet completely essential element that adds to the relaxed elegance of this deceptively simple design.
The split hem is another element that takes what might have otherwise been a silhouette that veered a little too much to the ‘comical-boxy’ end of the spectrum, so heavily and unnecessarily popularised by instagram knitfluencers, and firmly but gently glides the Floresta into the arena of effortlessly elegant and eternally fashionable knitwear designs that will always look on-point, even decades from now.
The Floresta was originally designed to be knit in one of Elena Sollier’s own Xollawool yarns; in fingering weight Pastoreta, the 100% Ripollessa Wool that is one of the two yarn lines designed by Elena, who does the heroic work of taking wool from Spanish-breed wool flocks, which would otherwise been destined for the landfills as agricultural ‘waste’, and turning them into beautiful heritage knitting yarns, spun and produced with Elena’s careful attention and guidance. From her commitment to engaging with fast-fading traditional rural economies, through the use of family owned small mills in her local area that spin the wool, to her attempt to reclaim the value and importance of wool fiber, Elena does amazing work, and I look forward to someday working with the original yarn that the Floresta was conceived in.
“The qualities of insulation without weight is so important to a garment fitting into the way I live. ”
However, my own Floresta was destined to be knit in what has now become my own signature combination of unspun Nutiden wool and Icelandic laceweight. The deep chocolate Nutiden was held with an almost identical shade of chocolate brown Einband, the Icelandic laceweight produced by Istex. And those striking Rosa Canina vines blossomed to life in Plotulopi, that grand matriarch of commercially available unspun wool.
I've said this so many times on my youtube podcast; the combination of Nutiden and Einband is my wool fabric match-made-in-sheepy heaven. This magical duo makes the Floresta lighter and yet warmer and more insulating than any other jumper I have knitted in a comparable weight of a fully spun wool. The qualities of insulation without weight is so important to a garment fitting into the way I live.
“I like my knitted fabrics the way I like my favourite people; unassuming and unobtrusive. ”
I need jumpers that can go back and forth between the wood-fired warmth of our one-room cottage, to the cold, misty, often damp and windy, outdoors of the foothills of the Olympic Mountains where I live. A fabric that breathes in the warmth and holds heat in the cold, that resists mist and rain, dries fast and feels familiar and forgettable on the body. A garment that does not constantly remind you that you have it on.
I like my knitted fabrics the way I like my favourite people; unassuming and unobtrusive.
Of course Elena’s pattern also just so happens to fit me perfectly in all the areas that most patterns seem to fail; shoulders and arms, which really is where the look and fit of any garment hangs on. You could get every element of a knitted garment right, you could knit it to exquisite perfection, but if the garment does not fit well in the shoulder girdle and upper chest, there is no distracting from it. I’m just so happy I’ve discovered a designer whose patterns seem made for my body type and shape.
The reach-for effect of the Floresta is a result of these two beautiful elements, of fit and pattern meeting type of wool and fiber, and I can see myself happily wearing this beauty many, many years from now.
Floresta on the Web:
