I do not know that I have ever done so much summer knitting!  By which I do not mean I am spending a lot more time knitting this summer (I wish!), but that the knitting I am doing is very summery — cotton, linen, silk yarns in warm weather styles (including a new beach shawl!).  Except for a baby sweater, everything I am making is for me — because I love wearing handknits and until now (or actually until these pieces are done) my summer knit wardrobe has been scanty.  

Lots of it is simple knitting — in fact, there is a LOT of simple knitting.  By which I mean copious amounts of small gauge stockinette stitch.  Which is all well and good and will result in lovely sophisticated pieces, but it makes for slow progress.  Slo-o-o-o-w progress.   And I cannot promise myself that I will have these lovely sophisticated pieces available to wear until late summer.  

So on the 4th of July, I caved and started a quick summery project!  Kristen Kapur's  "Short Beach Shawl" in Drop Dead Easy Knits.  I had been eyeing this pattern for a while and especially like the circular flower motif which, to me, has a clean Scandinavian look.  And, oh, the fringe is so delightfully boho!  I even had yarn for the project in my stash — a fingering weight cotton-wool blend in jade — and plenty of it!  I had bought the yarn to make a warm weather cardigan, but just did not get inspired.  I think the yarn looked too flat (color-wise) on the skein.  And I believe that it would have knit up a bit dull in stockinette.  But knit on large needles in a loose, highly dimensional garter stitch with the bold lace inserts, it rocks!  

I have one more summer shawl piece going — super simple stockinette (again knit loosely on large needles) with occasional bursts of purl bumps.  The yarn is an incredibly vivid blue silk of the thick-thin sort — and I just knit up some purl bumps whenever the thick part of the yarn arrives.  

I hope to have both these pieces finished for our trip to the beach in August 🙂