Finished Objects: Easter Dress and Peep
Pattern: Dress is my own pattern; Peep is Bluebird by Berrocco.
Size: Dress is 22" at the chest, sized to fit an 18-month-old.
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas Worsted Hand Dyes (50 percent wool, 50 percent alpaca; 100 yds per 100 g skein), petal and chocolate
Yardage: About 280 yds
Source: Jimmy Beans Wool
Needles: US 9-10.5 (5.5-6.5mm) double-pointed and circular needles
Gauge: 16 stitches = 4" in Stockinette stitch
Notes: For a project that I made up as I went along, I think this dress turned out very cute. I won the Blue Sky Alpacas yarn that I used to make it from Jimmy Beans Wool in their design contest, but until a few weeks ago I was unable to figure out what to do with it. I had three skeins of brown and one of pink, which were packaged together in a kit to make knee socks. I’m not really a knee socks kind of gal, but there was too much yarn to make just an accessory and too little for an adult garment. Earlier this month, I got to thinking of baby dresses, and I came up with this design for a sweet and simple yoked dress with short sleeves.
The dress was knit from the top down. The construction is pretty simple: I just figured out how many stitches I wanted at the armhole divide (equal to the desired body circumference at the chest plus both sleeves at their full width), decided how wide the head opening ought to be, and worked out how many increase rounds I needed to do, beginning with a round of K2, m1 and moving to K3, m1, then K4, m1, and so forth. I added one additional round of brown between each subsequent pink stripe to give the stripes a graduated effect. To make the skirt widen gradually, I added two stitches at each side seam every fourth or fifth round, and I also changed to larger needles twice as I worked my way down.
The Peep was a last-minute impulse knit — I saw Grace’s cute birds over at Kathryn Ivy yesterday and thought I’d whip up one of my own in the leftover pink yarn to give to the dress’s recipient, who I saw later in the day. This was a very quick and fairly simple pattern, though I ran into some trouble with the finishing directions. I was having a heck of a time getting it to look right until I realized that I had misunderstood which part of the little pink blob I had knit was supposed to be the head. The toddler who I turned it over to seemed to like it, if her carrying it around and waving it up and down is any indication.
March 23rd, 2008 at 1:54 pm
I love it! My daughter (who turns three in May) would love it, too. Now I need to figure out how make one of these for her…
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Oh man, I’d love to make something similar for June too! Adorable dress!
March 23rd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Totally adorable. Knitting for babies and small children is so satisfying!
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Very beautiful !!! I was planning on making a similar design in crochet for my neice.
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Well, look at you go. Miss FO queen over here! That dress is incredibly cute and the peep to go along with it even more so. Very nice.
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
How cute! I love the birdie popping out of the hanger hook. Peep peep! And I like the graduated stripes look too. You are cranking out them FOs, girl!
March 24th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Love, the dress and coordinating peep
The dress reminds me of chocolate covered cherries - The colors look delicious!
March 24th, 2008 at 11:48 am
The little dress is beautiful and the peep is so cute! I love the changing thickness of the brown stripes… great idea.
March 25th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Yum, yum, yum. I want a dress like that for ME.
The peep has personality — somehow the eye expression captures peep-ness perfectly. And the raised little wing pulls at your heartstrings with its’ quiet little “Up. Up.” invitation.
So. You just knocked this off did you? Way to go! Much more fun than kneesocks, and something a child can move around in with their little legs churning around in hot pink tights, no problem. No binding feeling around the shoulders or neck. Able to be layered if needed. Real clothes you can play in. YES!
Oh — and I especially like the neck. It doesn’t even look itchy.
March 25th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
The toddler in question is VERY excited to wear her new dress– she just needs to grow a bit to do so, and we are feeding her extra cookies to help speed things along. In the meantime, the bird is a true treasure to her– it’s the perfect size to squeeze and cuddle, to carry along with six-to-eight other stuffed toys at a time, and to hide inside toddler shoe boxes. Her mom loves everything, too! We do so love your whims!
March 26th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Cute, Sooooo Cute
March 26th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Great job on the dress design - it is really adorable! I’d love to make something similar for a friend’s daughter. Might have to get myself some Blue Sky Alpacas (I’ve always wanted to knit with it!!)
March 27th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
A few more details please as I’d love to make this for my niece. It looks like you purled the pink rows, yes? Did you seam the edges or do they just roll? Do you have a jog where you changed colors or did you do jogless (which I haven’t quite figured out)? Where is your “start” spot for rows and changing color: center back? side?
Thanks!!
May 14th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Okay, and I love this one, too. You’re an incredible designer.