Estonian Lace: Waterlily pattern

Waterlily is one of the traditional Estonian Lace patterns, in my opinion - one of the most exquisite.
It comes from Haapsalu region of Estonia where traditionally waterlily pattern would be used for lace shawls.  What I did not realize until recently is that there are at least three versions of this pattern, or possibly more.
I learnt about it from the blog by Liina and Olga: http://newlace.blogspot.com/. There, you can find charts for each of the waterlily pattern below.



Single waterlily


Double waterlily 1

Double waterlily 2

These motifs can further be combined for an "overall" pattern. Here is a single waterlily pattern with addition of nupps:

Here is a double waterlily 1 on one of my shawls:

At a first glance, waterlily pattern looks very sophisticated and difficult to knit. No, not really. It is pretty straight forward. There are however couple of tricky stitches, so be aware:

One of them right there in the middle of the lily, where one petal goes into three:

k3tog7: knit 3 stitches together and increase of them 7 stitches - knit stitches alternatively with yarn over

Another is worked several times throughout the pattern:
k4tog: knit 4 stitches together knitwise

So, get someone to help you  (if needed) and try it - the result is truly stunning.

Hope that helped!
Happy Knitting!
Natalia

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