3 New Rowan Yarns for Spring/Summer 2015!

Summerlite 4ply

Rowan's Summerlite 4 ply is absolutely gorgeous! 
It's 100% pure cotton, the finest Egyptian cotton...
with a soft matt finish!  

Martin Storey designed this collection of 12 delicate feminine garments,
all with fine stitch detail and a range of silhouettes.

"Rosean" - When I saw this design I knew this was the one
I was going to swatch!

I've knit a lot of stranded knitting, but I've never used cotton!

The swatch is gorgeous, the stitches so fine and perfectly formed,

the resulting fabric soft and luxurious!

If you love fine gauge knitting, at 28sts per 10cm, this is a yarn that will demand serious attention to complete your project, but you will be rewarded with a truly luxurious sweater!

Summerlite comes in 12 fabulous shades - you can see them all here....Summerlite 4ply

Cotton Lustre

Cotton Lustre is a blend of Cotton, Modal and Linen

What is Modal?  It's sort of like Rayon....but while Rayon can be made from any cellulose (wood pulp), Modal is made exclusively from the reconstituted cellulose from beech trees.

Modal is added to create this "tape" construction. Modal takes dye like cotton, is colour-fast when washed in warm water and is resistant to shrinkage and fading. Modal is more water-absorbent than cotton
and it is actually cool to the touch!  

WOW, sounds like a perfect summer yarn, doesn't it?

Well, I can tell you that it is a dream to knit with.
No splitting, no catching, and I loved the hand of the fabric knit with
this Cotton Lustre yarn.  I loved it so much, I decided to make two swatches!

My first swatch was stocking stitch, because some of the garments in the design collectionare simple stitches, that look fabulous in this special yarn.

This is "Riko" - love the short row shaping!
You can wear thisslit at the front (as shown) or to the back!

The Cotton Lustre brochure is a collection of twelve designs by Sarah Hatton!
(You know I love Sarah's designs)

Cotton Lustre comes in 10 beautiful summer shades and knits up quickly on a 6mm needle!

I also did a swatch of the cable from "Hana"
because I wanted to see how the yarn looked knit in this cable motif!

I loved it!

Tetra Cotton

Another 100% cotton yarn! But this isn't like anything I've seen before - it's a knitted chain construction which uses four shades in each of the 8 colour ways.

The Tetra Cotton design collection by Lisa Richardson
 includes designs for men and women!

There is a lot of open work stitch detail like the one on the cover
 and the one shown below. Both of these sweaters remind me of a favourite summer sweater I had years ago that I wore until it virtually disintegrated.
I wore that sweater well past it's sell by date :)
and I think I might try to replicate it with one of these!

On the cover "Matcha"

or this one, "Rooibos" which is the one I decided to swatch!

Another great thing about the Tetra Cotton is that Rowan
indicates that it is interchangeable with Truesilk and Cotton Glace!
Imagine!

I have to admit that I have not been a big fan of summer knits.....but last year I knit not one, but two summer sweaters - one in the fabulous Pure Linen (which was a combination of two Lisa Richardson designs) and the other a summer cardigan design by Marie Wallin in Silkystones!

This year I already have some more Pure Linen for another top as I love that yarn....

and I have to pick at least one of these new yarns to try this year.

but which one? or two....or maybe all three!

All of these new yarns and brochures will be available in your LYS soon.  The Rowan Spring/Summer Collection release date is February 1 here in North America (January 15 everywhere else!).

So until then, I have 3 projects so near completion right now:

• my Emley, a Sarah Hatton design in Fine Art Aran - just needs the sleeves sewn up and on!
• my Kaffe Fassett afghan needs to be sewn up and I've got backing material for it too!
• and my latest knit - Mette by Martin Storey in Brushed Fleece (all of the pieces are knit - I just have to seam them up and do the front rib and neckline bands) 

Happy Knitting!

Anne :)