Inspired by the sun

The wonderful, summer-like weather that we have been enjoying in Ottawa this week has got me thinking about summer knits. The time had come to break out the cotton I had stashed for a summer tank top.


This is the start of Soleil from Knitty.com. For once in my life, I'm actually using the yarn that the pattern is written for: Elann.com Sonata, in Lilac. It's actually on the pinker side of purple despite the very blue shade in the photo above. I haven't done a lot of knitting with cotton, other than dishcloths and some cotton-acrylic blends. It is a bit hard on the hands and wrists, as I've often heard. However the knitted fabric seems softer than the yarn in the skein. I suspect it will soften up even more with washing. I hope it fits, because I think I'm really going to like this top.

I also started a new sock yesterday. Marianne asked recently about the Bayerishe socks. In the interest of full disclosure, just after the last time you saw them, I made a huge mistake. I missed three out of four cable crosses in one round, and then continued for several rounds before I noticed the mistake. I can't fathom the idea of taking that crazy sock off the needles and ripping back - too many tiny twisted stitches to deal with! So I'm going to have to tediously tink back row by row. As I'm sure you can imagine, we needed a little time apart to get over this little inconvenience. I will get back to it as soon as I have the patience to deal with fixing it. In the meantime, I thought I would make my dad some socks for Father's Day.
The yarn in Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch, which is a wool, polyamide, elite (elastic) blend with subtle colour shifts. This was the most "manly" colourway I could find at my LYS. I don't usually knit stockinette socks - I feel that ribbing helps them stay up better. This is a bit of an experiment to see how the elastic affects the knitted fabric. So far so good - although it's a bit slow. I'm knitting 78 st on 2.25 mm needles. I could have gone with bigger needles, I know, but the yarn is actually pretty fine when stretched out. Definitely finer that the Lorna's Laces that I just finished knitting. So to make a nice durable fabric, I kind of felt like it needed to be small. Next time I knit men's socks, I think I'll use DK yarn!