Here comes Summer and its heat waves. A perfect time to go outside and to do some gardening or to be outside for longer and longer especially when you take advantage of your holidays.
But with this weather also comes the heat. Is it possible to keep knitting when it is over 30°C when we have more time to finally put it on our needles?
Is it even possible to think about putting wool on our needles while our hands are sweating?
Here are a few tips to keep knitting even in stifling heat.
1. The yarn’s choice to keep knitting during Summer
The yarn composition
You have certainly experienced having sweaty hands while knitting and nothing is more unpleasant.
Heat amplifies the problem. But there is a way to keep knitting even if it’s very hot.
First of all, it is best to avoid animal fibres such as wool, alpaca and especially mohair! They have the disadvantage of making your hands sweat, not only is it quite unpleasant, but the risk of felting is even higher.
So it’s better to opt for vegetable fibres such as cotton, flax, tencel, hemp, bamboo and why not silk??
For example, silk is very light, fluid and of a rare softness. It has isothermal properties, it keeps warm during Winter and brings freshness during Summer. For me, it is one of the most beautiful fibres to knit during the Summer with flax.
Flax is also thermoregulating. It gives a feeling of freshness during Summer and retains heat during Winter. This is due to its particular structure which gives its incomparable breathability.
These are just a few examples of possible fibres to knit in hot weather.
Yarn weight
It may also be worth choosing a pattern that favours a fingering type yarn rather than heavier yarns such as worsted or aran. This will be easier to handle, you will have less yarn on hand and it will be less hot.
2. Projects choice to keep knitting during Summer
Choose small projects instead, you’ll have less yarn on your legs. They will also be more transportable.
For example:
- amigurumis
- socks
- mittens or gloves
- baby clothes
- a top or a bralette
But you might also want to knit a sweater or a cardigan.
So why not choose a linen, silk or cotton tee, a small short cardigan to wear over a dress or a very airy shawl?
You might also consider starting a very big project as a blanket! So why not knit a blanket to assemble, which will allow you to have only small pieces on your needles during the hot weather when you’ll be assembling when the heat is a little more wearable.
3. Needles choice to keep knitting during Summer
We all have a preference for certain types of needles, sometimes it will be metal, sometimes wood or even plastic.
During the summer, we may have to rethink our preferences because metal heats up and becomes unpleasant to hold, sometimes it even oxidizes depending on the brand of needles.
Perspiration makes the needles very sticky and therefore it becomes difficult to knit smoothly because the fiber sticks to the needles.
The best choice seems to be wood or bamboo!
4. The choice of place and time to keep knitting during Summer
It’s 30°, you lose the desire to knit because it’s really too hot.
How about choosing a good place or time to knit?
In the summer when it is very hot, I have trouble sleeping and usually wake up early. For me it is one of the best times to knit, no noise in the house, it is cool and it is very nice not to be too hot or too solicited by the children, the husband, the dog or cat or the parrots!
If we go on vacation, I always take my knitting with me and I often knit in the car which has air conditioning. I also don’t hesitate to take my knitting out if we are having coffee after visiting a museum.
Museums and libraries are great places to knit because the air is conditioned to preserve the books and art or history artefacts.
Vous pouvez aussi tout à fait envisager de tricoter le long de la piscine les pieds dans l’eau ! Ou à la plage, sous un parasol avec une boisson fraîche à côté de vous !
5. Join a community or a KAL to keep knitting during Summer
You lose the desire to knit during the summer because your rhythm of life changes because the children are not at school anymore, because you have less pressure at work, because the weather is simply nice?
What if you join a knitting community to exchange? Or simply a KAL to keep a goal or simply the desire to discover new projects or new techniques?
For a few years now, I’ve been proposing a KAL during the summer, it allows to keep the link, to exchange, to discuss things and especially to give a goal!
This year the theme of the KAL is texture! And it’s happening on Ravelry and on Discord.
And if you want to join us, you have to contact me because the invitation link has a limited duration, so don’t hesitate to send me an email! – see contact section.
6. Finally, some suggestions to keep knitting during Summer
The choice is vast but here are some suggestions of patterns to make you want to knit during the Summer:
- Bondi Beach, a beach bag in mosaic knitting available in three sizes
- Lost In Time, a crochet shawl (who’s been waiting at least a year at my house)
- A lace shawl, Tone Poem
- A linen shawl that’s a few years old but I still find it pretty., Lida Shawl
- The Persian Dreams blanket for trying fair isle knitting (and well, if you let it go before the end, it’s possible to make cushions out of the hexes)
- Some Summery amigurumis: Lalylala’s Summer
- Valentine, a pure silk tee
- Clementine, an top in hemp that I designed in collaboration last year with Natissea.
Here is a very brief selection of the patterns available on Ravelry for this Summer. You might also consider learning new techniques such as stranded colorwork, modular knitting or why not crochet!
For those who want to hear French and try to understand a little bit of French, I published a video about this topic on YouTube
Tell me, what do you want to knit this summer? Feel free to tell me in comments.
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See you soon,
Christelle
