With winter behind us, it’s time to look forward to the sunny and warm days ahead. To me, that means working with bright and light weight yarns to make those perfect summer projects. This week, I’m knitting with Universal Yarn Cotton Supreme Waves, which is 100%, high quality cotton in bright self striping colors.
Cotton Supreme Waves is available in 10 different colors, of which I’ll be using 3 this week – Heliotrope, Lagoon, and Equator.
Cotton Supreme Waves is available in 10 different colors.
As you can see from the picture below, it’s a self-striping yarn with long cheerful color sets. The available patterns are interchangeable with Cotton Supreme DK and Cotton Supreme DK Seaspray, and the colors all work together beautifully.
I’ll be using Heliotrope (pinks and purples), Lagoon (turquoise and teal), and Equator (bright green and blues) for my projects this week.
Machine washable in warm water, and tumble dry makes Cotton Supreme Waves an easy-care summer garment solution. My own personal preference is to wash my cotton knits in cold water, tumble dry until damp, and then lay flat to finish drying. This way, the colors stay bright and cheerful and depending on the item, I can shape if needed.
Each cake is unique due to the long color runs.
Each 3.5oz [100g] cake contains 230yds [210m]. I was expecting the color gradients to be consistent in the balls of yarn, meaning each cake would start and end with the same colors. But not so as the color runs are very long for each color. What this means to me is that I want to make sure my selected projects flow from one to the next when attaching the next cake.
It’s rated as a Light (DK) weight yarn with a recommended gauge of 21 sts x 28 rows using a US 6 [4mm] needle. Quite often, sweaters designed for cotton tend to have a tight gauge, which helps maintain the garment’s shape over time. I find knitting with cotton at a tight gauge to be uncomfortable on my hands, so tomorrow, I’ll knit some swatches to determine the needle size that’s most comfortable for me to achieve the pattern gauge.
I know that some people shy away from self-striping yarns because they don’t really know what to do with them. Sometimes, the results are not desirable depending upon the project. For example, knitting a sweater flat and seaming together can result in mismatched stripes. If this is the look you’re after, great. If not, then you may be disappointed with the finished project. It’s all about choosing the right project for the yarn which is what this week is all about.
For my projects, I’ve selected a top-down Tee, an oversized shawl, and a baby blanket using my selected colors of Heliotrope (pinks and purples), Lagoon (turquoises), and Equator (blues and greens). Join me tomorrow where I’ll use three different needle sizes to determine how I’ll proceed with my Cotton Supreme Waves projects.