Fashion: Yarn Style

Summer Peaches in Cotton Lace and Spangles!

 

It’s been swelteringly hot here in California so I’ve been knitting cotton lace. Everyone needs a lace vest for summer, right? It’s a light, cool piece that adds a hint of style to a dress without making you much warmer. I’ve been seeking the pattern for a white lace vest like this for years!

 

“Peaches” by Kim Hargreaves is a free pattern that you can download from Ravelry here

 

I discovered the pattern when we kicked off the Kim Hargreaves-along in the Stitching over the Days group, which I am helping moderate. Our knit-a-long lasts until December and we are all knitting at least one piece by the ravishing knitwear designer. While I was posting  the free Kim Hargreaves patterns that can be found on Ravelry, I stumbled on “Peaches” and it was love at first sight! 

 

This pattern calls for Rowan Cotton Glacé, but I find that yarn hard on the hands so I substituted in Rowan Summerlite dk instead. The Summerlite is a dream to knit with—light and bouncy and comfortable to handle for hours at a time.  I have already purchased more for another upcoming summer pattern! “Summer?!” You may say, “isn’t it just one more day to fall, and September 1^st?” Not around here, my friends. In fact, the hottest days of summer have not even hit here yet. Indian summer, mid September, is truly sweltering in Sunnyvale so I will be continuing to make items in cotton for some time. 

 

 

So far every summer garment I’ve sewed so far has been in cotton, but this may be my favorite. It is a spangled Indian muslin, which I discovered at FabricsRus in San Jose for $3 a yard.

 

 

I used the popover dress pattern from Gertie’s Jiffy Dress book. I chose the shirring option of this sewing pattern which involves gathering in the waist using concentric circles of stitching with elastic thread. It was not an easy process but after much practice and effort, I am very happy with the result!

 

 

Soldotna by Caitlin Hunter

 

Recently I participated in a knit-a-long of the Soldotna Crop cardigan at my local yarn shop. What a great stashbuster Caitlin Hunter's design is! I used Handmaiden Casbah (blue), (Fibercompany's Road to China and Myak Baby Yak Medium (dark browns), Olann Merino dk (white flecked with pink, blue and brown) and Rowan softyak dk (pink). This top is really versatile because all of us had different figures and different color schemes but we all looked smashing in the sweater!

 

 

 My friend, Sylvie and I had fun finishing Soldotna at around the same time and then we wore them on our trip together to Yellowstone Park in Montana. The park was gorgeous because of all the late rainfall which had created a bonanza of wildflowers and dramatic waterfalls. I found the Soldotna Crop, with its short sleeves, to be a perfect weight sweater for the kind of alternating warm and cool temperatures at this time of year in Montana. Sylvie and I wore our sweaters from early in the morning at the Paint Pots Geyser basin:

 

 to our late evening dinner at Chico Hot Springs where we indulged in the flaming orange dessert:

 

The Soldotna is a very short pullover and I lengthened it by following the example on the Malabrigo instagram page of a version lengthened using a repeat from the upper yoke of the sweater.

I really didn’t have the option of making the blue section of the sweater longer as I’d run out of yarn—I tried to knit the sweater almost entirely from stash but the teal section used Handmaiden Casbah doubled to DK weight which almost immediately sold out from the store I’d bought it from so there was no way to extend the main body section. And I found it fun to bring more colorwork to the bottom of the sweater anyway. It is still cropped on me but looks great paired with jeans or a high-waisted skirt.

 

 

Here are a few more photos from our trip to Yellowstone:

 

1: The Paint Pots

 

2 A Mother Watching over Baby Elk

 

3. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone Waterfall