Summer Top

A few weeks ago I bought 7 skeins of Louisa Harding’s Noema yarn. I’ve been looking for something suitable for summer knits, and this yarn was on sale on ebay, so I thought I’d give it a try. I like Louisa Harding yarns and Noema has such bright, cheerful colours that I couldn’t resists.

This yarn is in 75% cotton with some acrylic and polyester content (I guess the silvery thread that is visible in the strands in polyester), and it feels more like a string than typical yarn. It’s quite thin – like sport weight (although the strands are not identical everywhere, their thickness is variegated too) – but it knits like worsted weight on larger needles to get a nice, light drape.

Once I had the yarn, I started looking for the right pattern. I discovered a whole world of gorgeous patterns by Louisa Harding and I saved one of them for the future (because I loved knitting with Noema so much that I ordered more in different colourway), but for my first Noema project I chose a Drops pattern named Call It Spring. I usually avoid mixing lace and variegated yarn, but Louisa’a patterns showed me that Noema actually looks awesome in lacy garments.

It was a very simple, well designed (and surprisingly simply described for a Drops pattern!) and fast knit. My only issue was that my gauge was slightly off (but not enough to change the needle size) and I struggled with a feeling that the top would end up too big. And since it’s knitted bottom up, I couldn’t really try it on easily while knitting. But it didn’t end up too big – in fact it’s perfect! The only modification I made was changing the length of the body – the pattern instructed to knit 37 cm from cast on to sleeves, while I made almost 50 cm. It’s not very long at all, so I can only imagine how short would it be if I had knitted it as in the pattern.

I also really like how the yarn knitted up in sort of irregular stripes in the waist area, where the rounds were shorter. I think it looks really cool 🙂

And this is how the lace details looks. It isn’t as visible as on plain yarn without colour variegation, but I think it’s just fine.

All in all, it’s a lovely, cheerful, and light summer top, and I’m absolutely going to wear it this week on my flight to Brussels. Because yes, after months of uncertainty and waiting for an offer, I finally signed a new contract and begin work again this week. Since I’m going to do slightly different things than in previous years (or maybe the methodology will be different, while the topic – biodiversity conservation – remains the same), I need an initial training first. So Brussels, here I come in my hand made top! 🙂