Summer has truly arrived in Ireland - certainly in the West, with a sunny spell lasting *two weeks*!

Even though I sometimes feel like knitting less in hot weather, I had a few new designs created in the cooler weather which will gradually make an appearance here : )

First up is the hat pictured above, the Doolin Beanie. I think of this as a sister pattern to the Aran Watchcap, as it features such a similar cable, but the cable is one stitch wide instead of two stitches. It creates a cable with less bulk, and allows for some more repeats - I like both of them, I must say, and love that both are unisex designs. I was running short on inspiration for the name, so I had a little competition on my Instagram & Facebook pages to name the pattern; I thought Doolin was a great choice, with Doolin being the ferry point closest to Inis Oírr. FYI - I try to have slightly different content on all my social media channels, so that you can follow more than one and not just see the same on each one.

I have another new design which should make an appearance this month - the Little Seagull Shawl. I had one skein of fingering weight yarn (Darnie from Studio Donegal/Donegal Yarns) and I really wanted to knit a little simple summer shawl that would make for ideal summer knitting - not too taxing, only one skein required, and a pattern that alternates sections where you have to pay some attention and sections where you don't. All the test knitters have finished knitting the shawls at the moment, but have not finished blocking them, so I decided to wait until everyone could see them in their full glory! I had some really positive feedback from the testers, so I hope that a few others will enjoy this pattern too, which will be released soon : )