Cassy of Knit The Hell Out came out with a pattern recently that made me find a small-ish child to put a garment on just so I could make it. Her Ruffaluffagus tunic/dress calls for sock yarn, of which I had plenty from making gloves. Or I thought I did. I ended up getting two more skeins because I think I really only had about a single skein to begin with.

The yarn I used was self-striping and the stripes really worked well with the gauge. For more complete information about the yarn I used, visit my Rosettaluffagus project page. The pinks in the yarn inspired the name, and also the accompanying headband.

Since the dress was for a little girl who loves hair accessories, I made a matching headband. (Project info here.) I am going to write up the pattern here soon, just to give myself a little practice writing patterns. I knit the band, then crocheted the flower separately and sewed it on with the center button.

The dress pattern was great. It was very easy to follow, which was good considering I had not knit (or even sewn, for that matter) an actual garment in a long time. The only thing I had any sort of complaint about was weaving in the ends, but that was my own darn fault. I had to buy two extra skeins of the yarn, obviously in a different dye lot than the first skein, so I not only had to stripe in the new skein to blend it, but keep up with the color changes to make the stripes correct. Lesson learned, next time make sure to have enough of the same dye lot to make the whole thing.

One of my favorite parts is how the short row sleeves make the stripe pattern mostly match up from the armhole to the sleeve. I didn’t even have to try to get that part correct.