Blogtober Day 26: Out of the Dyepot

I dyed up some yarn yesterday for my friend Pip (yet another gorgeous soul!).  These are both on Woolganics yarn - the very best handwash yarn on the planet. Seriously, the absolute best!

This blue toned colourway is named 'Kyle' and this lot is on the 8ply Woolganics.

The pink one here is named 'Kyla' funnily enough!  This is on the 12ply Woolganics.  Just. So. Squishy!

Cathy's Package

Cathy sent me some black wool to make her two pair of longies for her kids. The wool was divinely squishy and soft. mmmmm, a delight to knit I tell ya. So I did the longies......
And I also offered to make her a dress from a new pattern I am working on. With Cherries. So, this is what I came up with. The contrast red is WOOLganics chilli pepper.....

The dress is worked seamless and in the round. I have wanted a more traditional sleeveless shaping for a seamless knit, so I thought I would design it myself. One day I will size it up and work out my notes and make the pattern.....one day lol.

A special set for a special lady

Hayley and I did a swap for some stuff - and I made her this set for my part. I am totally in love with it and think it's the best thing I've ever made. The yarn for the longies is WOOLganics which I dyed myself on Australia Day, the brown yarn is a cotton/acrylic blend I got from spotlight.

Oriental Lily Tester

I was testing out the Oriental Lily dress pattern for Tikki, and I did it in a 3 month sizing.....totally made me all clucky! Only for a minute though ;). It is knit in WOOLganics organic merino yarn in Leura (deep navy) and Blossom (deep rosey pink). It turned out lovely I think.

I cannot rave enough about this yarn to knit with, it is simply devine. My absolute favourite to date. It does have a bit of pill about it, as the Helena cardigan I previously did has pilled, but it's been shaved now so we will see if it goes for a second shedding. Also the underarms of the Helena have felted a bit, so in heavy wear items it might get a bit felty. But I truly do love it to bits.

I also cannot rave enough about this pattern. I adore it love it. It is simple and elegant, well written and just a great piece of work. I can't wait to dive into more of them to be honest. Lots of oriental short sleeve tops for summer I think :).

Helena Cardigan for Kassidy

I fell in love with this pattern the moment I saw it. It's the Helena Cardigan from www.knitty.com and it's just adorable. So I joined in a Knit-along with some friends from Woolaholics and enjoyed sharing the experience with others too.

I am very pleased with the results too. I made a few mods on the pattern though, which I think added to my enjoyment of the final product.

• I did see stitch waist, cuffs and edging
• I picked up the patterned stitches on the edging, but used the same needle size for the whole project (4mm)
• I also did an increase in the turn of the edging for the 'collar' bit once on each side on the 5th row of edging
  

These three mods meant that there's no pulling on the edging at all which is great, because I have read a few comments from people saying that their edging was puckering.

• I did 5 stitch wide ties
• I picked up 16 stitches under each arm
  
• I and did decreases (only slight) down the arms, one decrease every 5 rounds.