I believe that crochet perfectly partners with knitting, providing the sometimes practical and sometimes beautiful details that are less inherent in knitted fabric alone. I often use ribbing as a background fabric in the same way that others use stockinette. I like to turn the visual details conceived as slants or notches into full-fashioned increase/decrease elements. For the bodice, I used crochet to best focus on the linked pearl idea as a fabric. And I attached the pearls using a crochet method on the collar and a woven elastic-thread method for the underbust. With my designs, I always seek to capture the times we are living in with a classic response—knitting and crocheting by hand.” — Mari Lynn Patrick