New yarn!

I got some new yarn! All seasons cotton melange 'Cookie' from the Cucumberpatch

It is a gorgeous color! The pictures on my monitor are pretty accurate.

I started swatching. It took me 4 swatches to get the right gauge! I am on gauge on 4mm needles instead of the 5mm needles it suggests! I am used to going down a needle size to accomodate my loose knitting.

Thanks for the comments for my last post! Austy's mum, I dyed my yarn in small icecream containers.

finishing is looming.....

My dress is coming along well. I actually finished the body/jumper part of it but then decided that it wasn't meant to be really fitted so then i frogged my cast off edge and knit another gore. I have nearly finished!

I really want to do a good job with the finishing and take my time so it looks neat. I had the idea that instead of seaming the sides of the dress together like the pattern suggests, i wont cast off and I will unpick the cast on edge on the other side and graft them together. like a 'after thought' seam. Pretty cool idea hey?

Oh, i ordered Rowan's All Seasons Cotton in 'Cookie' from cucmberpatch UK for this:

Pretty hey? It is out of a book i bought recently 'Knit #2' by Jo Sharp.

I will post pics of yarn when it gets here.

Happy Valentines Day!

First FO of the year finally.

Pattern: VK holiday 06
Yarn: Corriedale pencil roving 'chocolate' from theknittery.com.au
Needles: Denise 9mm
Modifications: Reduced no of sts at the start and followed pattern of shaping

I love this hat! I frogged it once at the start when i realised that the hat was going to be too big even though it is a 'bulky' beret. I just reduced the no of cast-on from 4o to 36 and then just followed the pattern of the shaping. easy. The pattern stitch was nice. a 2 stitch cable pattern. Even though the wool was humungo I still had to take my time to make sure i didn't snag the loosley spun yarn with my rather sharp denise.

More jelly dyeing and yarn buying

I bought some new yarn! theis pencil roving has been specially dyed for me in 'chocolate' by the knittery.

I am going to make this (the hat) with it:

After the recent success of my jelly dyeing i thought i'd have another shot but this time using 2 differnt colours; lime and strawberry flavoured jelly. I found 4 balls of white cygnet 'wool rich' sock yarn . I am very pleased with how this experiment turned out!

Just out of the microwave:

Soaking ................

dry.........

eh viola! I love this yarn! cant wait to knit some socks out of it!

dyeing yarn with jelly?!

Yup. and it works quite well actually and quite fun! I guess it is the Australian version of
Kool-aid yarn dyeing. Here are the materials i started with some jelly crystals (note: you don't have to use jelly lite, It was the only one that i had in the cupboard) and the yarn is just a one from my stash. I wound my ball of yarn into a circle using my swift them submerged it in a sink of warm water with a little bit of soap. I them emptied the packet of jelly crystals into a small ice cream container and filled the container with boiling water. I then put in my damp yarn. I zapped it for 4 minutes and hey presto! some cool yarn!


After it had cool i just rinsed it and hung it out to dry and then rewound it. easy as pie.


I might make the headband calorimetry in the latest knitty.