FO: Little Sister’s Dress (with hat and booties)
Thank you, thank you, thank you all for the encouragement for my sewing experiment, the tips about machines, books and classes, and the sewing stories and memories. I think I will resist the temptation of buying a machine and an entire fabric store just yet, and tinker around some classes and machines a bit before finalizing one. Watch this space!
Over the last couple of days, instead of sullenly packing and repacking my bags and bitching about having to go back, I completed this lighting-fast project. It has gone a long way in taking the edge of my irritation and despair, because its recipient, a newly-minted niece of mine, is going to show up at the airport to claim it and I cannot *wait* to set eyes on her:
It’s the Little Sister’s Dress, a delightful, clever and quick pattern (and free!). I made the three-month version, but with slightly thicker yarn, so it would run a little large. I love the way it takes the basic top-down seamless pattern and creatively fashions sleeves out of it even as it does away with them. All you do is cast off, and presto: sleeves. My mum knit the last couple of inches at the bottom, adding a small pattern and a slightly ruffled edge. So it’s not as A-lined a frock as it could have been, but it looks just like what we call a zhabla in Marathi.
Specs:
Yarn: Vardhman Little Angel, Shade 123, just over 4 skeins of 50 grams each (anyone know how many yards a skein of this is?)
Needles: size 4 DPNs
Gauge: Did not bother to check
My mum also knit her favourite booties pattern with the frock, and I knit a little helmet with an antenna. My allergy to baby projects is definitely weakening.
The hat was improvised – I cast on 70 stitches, knit 3 rounds and purled 3 rounds for a couple of inches, and then decreased every other round starting with k5, k2tog all around, then k4, k2tog, etc. When there were only 5 sts remaining, I took them all on one needle and made an I-cord antenna.
This shade of red is very difficult to photograph – worse than black, really, cause it bleeds so much, even in natural light. I realized as I was tinkering with the saturation that I haven’t knit anything non-red or non-crimson in nearly a year. My sampler shawl is also this color, and the BPT cardigan was a similar shade too. I think I need to look at some blues and greens now. Or even redecorate the blog a bit, if I can figure out how to change the header image without my title disappearing. Maybe a visit to Stash or Article Pract will cheer me up when I return, what?
