Summer Holidays - Seaside trips and summer knits

The summer holidays officially started here on Friday! We celebrated by heading over to my parent's place for a few days and taking a little day trip down to Barry Island (of Gavin and Stacey fame) to paddle in the sea, dig in the sand, explore rock pools and eat fish and chips and ice cream on the promenade...

The actual beach area is not huge but it has benefited from a face lift in recent years, was clean, tidy and very family friendly without being overly commercialised. We loved the bright coloured beach huts and the clever climbing wall!

I even got to indulge my own little obsession with beach combing and collected some lovely sea treasures whilst Roo splashed about in the sea...

As you can see we had a lovely day and were blessed with sunshine but to be honest the summer so far hasn't been amazing. We have had more than our fair share of cool, wet blustery weather although some days the heat has been almost oppressive and the humidity has been high turning my hair to frizz and making my hands sweat whenever I pick up my knitting.  Yes, I know joining the #fringehatalong I mentioned in the last post and attempting to make a lace stitch hat in aran weight Peruvian wool probably wasn't the best decision I have ever made...

...but the hat is finished and looks lovely. I almost can't wait now for the weather to cool enough for me to wear it!

So what does one knit when the weather is hot and sticky? I found the perfect pattern and the perfect yarn to knit it with!  Morning Mist by Annie Rowden is a lovely simple summer tee comprising of a lace back panel from which stitches are picked up to create the front shoulders/neckline and then more stitches picked up to continue knitting in the round. The panel was knitted from the centre using an invisible provisional cast on and a simple 8 row repeat lace stitch pattern whilst the rest of the tee is plain stocking stitch finished off with garter stitch edgings.

blocking the lace panel

stitches are picked up along the edge of the lace panel for the front

playing matchy-matchy with my knitting and my mug...

I am using Drops Belle yarn - a cotton/linen/viscose mix that knits up into a lovely lightweight drapey fabric. Just perfect for summer knitting as, unlike wool, it keeps my hands cool.  Even better it's on special offer, along with other Drops cotton yarns, from most Drops yarn stockists until the end of July. I am knitting this lovely summer top for less than a tenner!




Whilst knitting this pattern up I have made two knitterly discoveries...

      (1) I am not a big fan of knitting big expanses of stocking stitch - even when it is in the round and therefore no purling is involved

BUT (2) knitting big expanses of stocking stitch, in the round (no purling) means I can read and knit AT THE SAME TIME!

This is a great discovery that has really sped this project along!!
Which is good because I would like to finish it before the summer ends so I can actually wear it this year...

Morning Mist is subject of another Instagram knitalong, search #morningmistkal for lots of beautiful colourways! ( I am totally blaming the lovely Andrea Mowry (@dreareneeknits) for sharing her gorgeous finished Morning Mist knit and making me do it!!)