Pattern for the "Accidental" Knitted Dress

[treeskin]

First, go to ChicKnits Free Patterns and look for the picture of a white tank top. That's the "U Can 2 Shell" by Bonne Marie Burns; click on this (the pattern we want is linked from here). BTW, the long-sleeved brown sweater shown on the line below is the pattern I used for that red sweater you liked.

Anyway, on the "U Can 2 Shell" page, look for the link for the XL size, and go there. We're going to start with that.

She calls for 800 yds ww yarn for the shell; I used a whole 1-lb cone of Sugar & Cream yarn, plus a few dozen yards from another cone. So get two just in case.

Gauge is the key thing. Match her gauge, you get her nice little tank top. (I'm going to try that again one of these days). What I ended up with on the dress is 3 sts to the inch, instead of 4. Big difference. My hem circumference is (after wearing lots and a couple of washings, so this may be off) almost 80".

I worked the sweater in the round, with #10 needles, so cast on 54 sts, place marker, cast on 54 sts, place marker, join. Work k 4 p 4 rib for about 2" (keeps the bottom from curling up), then knit plain until it's long enough. Mine is 19" from hem to the first decrease.

I decreased out 60 sts over 6" so the bodice wouldn't be gigantic. Basically, decrease by 10 sts (evenly spaced around) every other rnd, knit the next round plain. Then I knit 4 rnds plain before starting the armhole shaping.

I used Ms. Burns' armhole & neck shaping, altered for my gauge (just figure the st counts for 3 sts to the inch instead of 4), and changed the necklien to scoop neck rather than the funnel neck she uses.

Let me know if you need me to write out that part.

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Cool, thank you. :) What works better, a circular needle or a set of double-pointed needles? I'm assuming circular, but I don't want to use the wrong thing. :)

My order from Dharma Trading Company came--three things that I want to dye (I'm going to leave the black dress plain) so far. I only ordered one tank top till I could see it and decide I liked it, so I'm going to get several more of them, and Ranj likes the long white crinkle dress so much I think I'll get a long *black* crinkle dress too. (This will necessitate either sewing or knitting--or both--floaty shirts/cardigans to go over them so they'll work for fall too, hee hee.)

I think that I know what I want to do for the long crinkle dress, assuming that it can be done with rayon and will work, but I need to know how to treat them so they'll be dyeable (and I was kind of hoping I could come over and do it at your house sometime when you guys are dyeing, so that I won't just be flailing trying to figure it out).

I have a long white rayon crinkle dress, a cotton tank, and a rayon sarong. I'm going to hold off washing just in case there's something special I should do with them. Oh, and since I want to do yellow and red on the dress, I figured it would be less complicated if I did the tank and the sarong using one or both colors as well.

[treeskin.livejournal.com]

Repeat after me:

Circular needles are my friend.
Circular needles are my friend.
Circular needles are my friend.
Circular needles are my friend.
Circular needles are my friend.

Get the idea? *grin*

Actually, if you're going to do this in cotton, you might want to make the trip to Yarn Barn and get a wood or bamboo-tipped circular, because cotton yarn on aluminum slides all over the place and it's hard to control and keep even (IMHO). As smooth as the needles feel in your hands, you wouldn't think that would make that much of a difference, but it does.

I'll try to get back to you sometime this week on the dying.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Petsmart Online has a sale on thermal kitty beds (http://www.petsmart.com/cat/shopping/beds/products/product%5F28344.shtml) right now...I get their email flyer and saw it. 9 bucks isn't too bad, I don't think, and in my experience, even with shipping, buying from the website is cheaper than buying in the store, if you can stand the delayed gratification.

[treeskin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads up. We get their email flyer, because we've got the little shopper card thingie, but we always delete the flyer without reading it.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I usually scan it in case they're having a sale on something that I could use. Of course, they never do. But sometimes there's something useful there.

[treeskin.livejournal.com]

Since our provider got bought out, we're starting to get a lot more junk mail. I've become very fond of my delete button. They say they're working on it, and when they get our old provider's email server fixed (which is probably necessary), the junk mail ought to go away. No info on when that will happen, though.