I was looking for a little girl’s dress and I loved the shape of this one by knitalily. I followed the shape diagrams and diverged completely from there. I had the Rowan cotton in my stash and this seemed a good time to use it.

I wanted to do a top down/ in the round project, so I did a provisional cast on for the shoulders and then used that to start the second side. I like the simplicity of garter stitch selvedge, so I did that instead of the slip stitch at the neck and armholes. I read over the instructions to get the percentage for the difference between the bodice and the skirt of the dress, then knit down in the round.

Originally I bound off the bottom and tried the crochet picot at the hem, but I didn’t like how firm it was considering all the stress it will get. So I did it over with a knitted picot hem which still looks cute and has lots of give.

We’ll see if the little girl loves wearing the dress as much as I enjoyed making it.

Technical note: I used this project to try out knotting cotton yarn instead of trying to weave in. I’ve always had bad results weaving cotton and there aren’t any handy selvedges when you work in the round. I tried Mohair knot #491 from “The Ashley Book of Knots.” You can see one in the hem detail photo. It took some fiddling to make sure they all ended up on the reverse side, but so far they work great.

12/8/2010

The girl loved the dress and has even grabbed it a few times to wear over a long sleeved shirt come cold weather. The picot hem and the knotted joins have held up fine with multiple washings and plenty of playground trauma. I am even lazy and sometimes send it through the dryer instead of laying flat.

The only thing I don’t like is how the bottom of the neckline V has pulled. There is a slight pull in the photos from when it was new that has gotten a bit worse.