Sneaking up on Summer

Now, you all know I love to knit. I love yarn. I love learning new stitch patterns. I love barrelling through a sweater in a weekend, my hands glowing with the promise of something cozy to wear.

But, I have a problem. It's called summer. As soon as the weather warms up, I have about as much desire to knit as I do to run a marathon... which is to say, I get exhausted and sweaty just thinking about it.

Last summer, I came up with a rather sneaky pattern to beat the summertime knitting blues. It not only produced something I wanted to wear right away (which I'm starting to think is the only reason I ever knit anything), but with a lightweight cotton and only a few stitches on the needle, there was nothing overly warm or cozy to scare away my hands.

The past month, I've been trying to come up with a new, equally summer-friendly pattern to knit, but, well...I'm stumped. I try to imagine a knitted friend I might need this summer, but apparently I'm feeling rather hopeful and well-equipped. Give me sunshine in the morning, lakes to swim in, and big, ripe slicer tomatoes, and I'll wear anything. Acid-washed jean shorts. A turban. A clover chain around my neck. I don't care. Just give me summer.

So, until I can wrangle some kind of motivation out of my sunshine-addled brain, I've been sticking with the necklace cowl. Knit in fancy, silver glitter or multi-color stripes, they all feel like summer to me.

I've been knitting these up for sale in my Etsy shop and in the Crafty Wonderland store in downtown Portland. And while apparently I'm not interested in anything new for myself, I do think I might be convinced if this yarn were involved...

Madelinetosh Pashmina, Turquoise

Swoon.

Wouldn't this make an awesome necklace cowl, with big chunky knitted turquoise "beads"? And there'd be a whole lotta yarn leftover for something else, something new and exciting and a little summery? Come on, hands, you know you want to....