Summer is in full swing over here. July is the month of the year (every year) that basically the whole country of Finland pauses for an entire month, just to relax in the countryside and by a lake. We are slightly ahead of the holiday calendar compared to rest of the Europe, as August is more “back to work” month already.

To me the summer has always been pretty much the same - except for one year when I took 3 weeks almost completely off, and had a terrible time getting back to work swing after my vacation. I guess it’s a skill on its own that I haven’t mastered yet! Also I’ve been perfectly happy with working in more relaxed way, spending a lot of time outside doing various sports, so I feel like a full vacation is not something I’m missing much!

And this year I have so many fabulous projects lined up, that it would be hard to convince me to take a weeks long pause anyway! More details on those later, but today I wanted to share my Alma Skirt with you.

Alma Skirt was another collaboration with Ilo Yarn for Jyväskylä Knit Fest 2024. We have been collaborating so many times before, already in 2019 for the very first time when Aara Yarn was created! That year I made a half-pi shawl Linnaea (that you can still get from my shop here too!). Aara is definitely my go-to yarn and somehow my needles feel empty if I don’t have a Aara project in the works!

Somehow the colors and bases and feel of Aara always suit my designs so well! A big part is that Jonna is one of my closest friends and that always makes the knitting and designing feel special.

This spring both Jonna and I felt that what our knitted wardrobe was missing was a skirt. A knitted skirt has been somewhere in my dream knit list for quite some time - I for example has a very complete set of ideas for the skirt in my Pinterest! But somehow the project felt too big and unpractical. Oh boy, how wrong I was!

The skirt is actually quite quick, more or less like a sweaters worth of knitting and - there are no sleeves! No sleeve island to get stuck on! Basically the majority of the knitting is just easy Stockinette stitch in the round, there’s no shaping, no nothing, just pure easy fun knitting. Ans it’s so comfortable to wear, even during a summer season. Maybe not during the biggest heat wave, but in typical Finnish summer weather a merino skirt is absolutely perfect!

So far I have knitted two of these: the yellow one in Tuuma, sport weight merino blend for me. The colorway is called Karri and it's such a big favourite of mine! You might remember me using it quite a few times before already! And the second one was made for Jonna! Hers is of course the double stranded deep raspberry pink silk mohair version! Suck a lovely and light skirt!

So no is your chance to get the Alma Skirt with a 20% discount. Use code ALMA20 until the end of the day Monday, July 8th! Let’s knit all the skirts!