You might remember the Blue Glitter Dress from Stickatillbarbie.se (pattern number 619) that I showed you in December.Here’s a Ravelry link, and here’s the link at the Wayback Machine for that page (patterns #601-650).
I made another one in plain black. This is an acrylic fingering yarn that’s labelled as baby yarn, that I bought at Walmart for a couple of bucks. I liked how soft it was, but (of course) that means it’s splitty, too.
Here’s the finished dress, which looks much better in plain black than in that glittery stuff:
I knit this one longer, so it would fit the Silkies, and that turned out to be a good thing. Even though the stitch counts and needles are the same on the bodice of both dresses, this one is much skinnier. Only the Silkie girls can wriggle into it. This time, the hem wants to roll, even though it’s in garter stitch. The acrylic yarn won’t take a block, so I sewed a line of beads into the garter stitches to weigh it down. That didn’t actually work – I had to fuss with the hem to get this picture and it flipped up again right afterward – so I’m thinking I might thread some wire into the hem to hold it in place.
Otherwise, I’m quite pleased with it, though – and I’m done with knitting ballgowns. They take forever!
This project has been on my needles longer than I expected. Usually, knitted garments for the girls are quick projects, but this time, the yarn was a challenge.
Here it is:
What the camera isn’t picking up is the glitter. This is a sparkly yarn with a bit of metallic thread included in it. It’s structured with a central cord that might be cotton, then the lumpy-bumpy-glittery color bit is wound around that in a spiral. When you knit, the spiralled thread slides up and down, which makes for some bigger bumps – and a bit of frustration. I don’t know what the yarn actually is as I found it without a label at the thrift store, but I’m sure it’s not intended to be knit on 2mm needles.
Finally, finally, I finished the dress. This is the Blue Glitter Dress from Stickatillbarbie.se. It’s pattern number 619 – here’s a Ravelry link, and here’s the link at the Wayback Machine for that page (patterns #601-650).
The glitter really doesn’t photograph at all. 😦 Too bad, because it’s very shiny, just the thing for a festive party. Without the sparkle showing, it just looks lumpy. (Although this makes me wonder if I should use the rest for a tweedy little suit. Hmm.)
I didn’t love this pattern as much as some of the others from this designer. It’s a top-down knit, starting with 60 stitches – which is a lot. I see on Rav that some knitters have taken that down to 50 stitches, and I would do the same if/when I knit it again. With this one (and part of that might be the yarn. It’s pretty crunchy) the shoulder band is way too big. I ran a few rows of stitches through it on the back side with buttonhole thread to tighten it up.
I did modify the pattern to knit it in the round. The body is knit fairly straight according to the directions, but I substituted my shaping from the dresses with the fur skirts.
I could not get the stitch counts to work out on the mermaid flare. Picking back this yarn a couple of times really wasn’t fun. 😦 The increases are done before and after a knit stitch, and those two M1’s so close together were a challenge in a yarn with no stretch. I’m not sure what I did wrong, but after picking it back twice, I rewrote the instrcutions for the flare increases. You can see in the picture that I divided the skirt into quadrants, offsetting the increases so they’re centered on the right front, the left front. It’s the same on the back. They’re still on either side of a knit stitch, with 3 rows worked plain in between each increase row. This way, my stitch counts worked out.
There’s four rows of garter at the hem before binding off, which echoes the six rows of garter at the shoulder band. I’m pleased with the dress now it’s done, but the next one will be in regular fingering weight yarn. I think it will be in that solid black baby yarn.
It’s possible that I’ll add another set of increases and made the skirt a half an inch longer. It really looks short on the Silkies. I’m also wondering about adding a tulle ruffle under that flare…
Alive & Knitting 