A summer knit project

It's been so hard to decide what to do next, now that Mermaid is finished. I love Mermaid but it is soon not going to be the weather to wear it (she says hopefully, looking at the rain!) I have a couple of other Hanne Falkenberg projects waiting in my stash but think they might be better left until Autumn.

I finally decided on a Rowan cotton funky, lacy cardigan (it's in the tribal section of their last summer collection) with wooden beads woven into the yoke part of the cardigan. It's an ecru colour in the photo but I look ill in ecru so I chose white instead. I have had to go with the natural wood beads they used for theirs - the whole bead thing has been a saga. I was so unsure of whether they'd look OK that I tried two other kinds of beads first - one a silver glass one and the other a sort of pearl. Both would have looked good but the yarn is simply too thick to go through the hole so back to square one (and about £15 worse off). Whilst waiting for the right beads, I have knitted the back and both fronts as far as the yoke which is where the beads come in. Now that the beads have arrived (and do actually fit onto the yarn - miracles do happen!) I have started knitting the yoke of the back. I've done about 12 or 13 rows of the yoke (the beads come every 4 rows) and I have to say it is looking pretty good. I think I would have preferred a lighter shade of bead but natural was the lightest they did. Hey, I am sure I will enjoy wearing it when I finish it.

And after all that garter stitch and 2 ply wool, it's a bid strange knitting in DK cotton in a lace pattern with beads. But we knitters love to be flexible, don't we?