Summer Knitting

We have short but glorious summers here in southwest Washington state.  Granted, the temperature where my daughter lives in California is expected to reach 106F (41.1), this weekend while our high temp is supposed to be 76F (24.4C) … and it rains a lot here.  But that means everything stays green longer; it’s beautiful.

While our temperatures may not be too summery – compared to California, at least – my knitting is.  I recently stumbled upon several skeins of fibra natura’s Naturalin – a blend of 53% cotton/47% linen (100g/3.5oz 155m/170y) in a nice blue.  I’m knitting “Penelope Blouse” by Annie Dempsey … a nice top for warm weather (whenever that will be).

Naturalin – no surprise given its fiber content – feels a bit like straw (and it’s so easy to split the 4-ply yarn while knitting!), but I think once washed a few times the blouse will soften up nicely.

I have several skeins of an alpaca-merino blend in a deep red, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for something worthy of the yarn.  I think I found it.  Those who follow Linda Marveng‘s blog know that she released her pattern for a beautifully-cabled vest with an origami-like structure: Cahal.  I immediately bought it.  I will have to see what my gauge swatch reveals … will the soft alpaca-merino set off the beautiful cabling?

More on that later.

In the interim, here are some pictures I took while we hiked in the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge and on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge.  I’m hoping the beauty of subjects will outshine the limits of my photography skills!