In Hans Christian Andersen’s The Wild Swans, Elisa is a beautiful princess with eleven brothers. When her brothers are cursed and turned into swans, she takes a vow of silence and must knit them shirts from stinging nettles to return them to human form.

This was always one of my favorite fairytales, because I remember being so taken with it the first time I heard it. I had been on a great search recently to find it again after I had forgotten the name of the story. I love wikipedia…all I had was a loose plot and knew it involved knitting nettles…and I was able to find the beloved story!

This is not at all like knitting stinging nettles, especially when using a silk and baby merino yarn! The porcupine lace resembles the flowers of the stinging nettle and it made me think of prickly things.