Anne Podlesak’s design process often begins with a bit of research. She’ll go to Google or Pinterest and spend hours looking at photos, browsing until she gets some flash of inspiration. Even she doesn’t know where it will take her.
Anne’s Beowulf Sweater is a striking, unisex design named after the classic Scandinavian folktale. While the body is simple stockinette, the detailed colorwork along the yoke gives a nod to the toothed dragons on the Norse ships. The pattern is knit in the round, from the bottom up, using three shades of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light.
Tell us how/why you came up with this design?
I wanted to design a piece that would work well for a guy – my husband is notoriously picky about sweaters with too much detail – but be interesting enough for the knitter. I originally had in mind a cabled sweater, but after thinking about, it wanted to highlight something with Viking motifs, and I love the longboats with their dragon-head prows. This design is part of a larger series of fairy tale and myth-themed knitwear that I’m working on.
See more of Anne’s Legendary Knits
What’s your favorite project you’ve ever made? Why?
This is a hard one, but I think it would have to be the Alice Starmore baby blanket I knit for my nephew when he was born. It was a fun to knit, it came out beautifully and his mum treasures it – WIN!
If you could knit something for anyone in the world it would be…?
It would be fun to knit something for Eleanor Roosevelt. I admire her strength greatly. And she seems like the type of person (and knitter) who would really appreciate a nice pair of lace handknit socks!
What’s your favorite thing about knitting?
I love seeing something come to life on the needles. Creating a project from a swatch and some written instructions, and watching it become something fantastic to wear gives me a huge sense of satisfaction.
Do you have a cool design you want to share? Or did you recently finish a project with Berroco yarn? You can email Ashley: apalumbo@berroco.com or post it to the Berroco Lovers forum in Ravelry.