Dunes Jumper

I am making progress on the Dunes Jumper, the weather has been overcast but very steamy, but with air con. it makes knitting enjoyable anytime of the year. It is knitted from the neck down. I am using Tasman Yarns Alpaca 8ply natural colour in Camel. It is a nice knit, I think the pattern is a bit out though, it starts off with the same amount of stitches for all sizes with more repeats of pattern for each size, I am knitting the 2nd size, when I had done 2 of the 3 repeats I had the 2nd largest size number of stitches, so I stopped there and continued onto the body. I have 1 and a bit balls of yarn left I am hoping that is makes it to the length I need, it is the size in the photo at the moment. Photo on the right is pretty true to the colour, the other photo was taken with a flash.

For Kiama Show I put in nearly all the same items I put into Albion Park show, I took Rae's (CR&K Daisy Designs) baby shawl to the show for her, It is absolutely beautiful, it is knit in 2ply, It took out Best in Show for the knitting along with first prize in the class it was entered. My shawl came in 2nd in the same class. Very happy with that result. I rang Rae and she was so excited.

My nice 3 piece baby set with the best flat seams ever, didn't get a look in, 1st in that class was a very nice very lacy set, but 2nd prize went to a loosely knit acrylic set, don't know what these judges are thinking. There were a couple of others that in my opinion were alot better, but that is the way it goes. My alpaca bootees got a Highly Commended and so did the child's jumper with the yarn I dyed. So pretty good results again.

In a class of other items not mentioned but not wool, that is where my alpaca bootees got the highly commended, it was the where I put my swirly scarf too, there were 4 other swirly scarfs and guess what, one of them won 1st prize in that class, not mine. So it goes to show that some beautifully knitted items don't always win and sometimes silly knitting yarns with fun type items as the swirly scarf can win.