Month: October 2020

Ruby Dress pattern

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I posted about the Ruby dress I designed and made last week, but I hadn’t yet written out the pattern. Well, now I have, so I wanted to post it here so other people can have the opportunity to make this cute little dress!

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Full disclosure: I tried to find people to test knit for me and didn’t get any takers, so this pattern hasn’t seen anyone’s eyes but mine until now. If there are any mistakes (which I don’t think there are, but you never know), please feel free to let me know so I can adjust them.

I did not include a pattern for the flower because I didn’t write one. Any crochet or knit flower (or even a decorative button or felt/silk flower) will do. You could even leave the dress plain, but I think the flower adds a little “something special.”

Here is the pattern.

Ruby

Knit Toddler Dress

Size 12-24 months

Gauge: 18 stitches and 26 rows using larger needles in stockinette = 4 inches

Yarn: Worsted or chunky, whatever you like to get gauge. I used Caron Latte Cakes in the color Strawberry Flambe, which is labeled as a “chunky 5,” but felt reasonably thin (worsted) to me.

Needles: Any to get gauge, plus one set a couple sizes smaller. I used size 8 for the ribbing and size 10 for the rest. Interchangeable circular needles are preferred because of the rapidly increasing skirt. It starts small (a 16” or 20” cord will do) but increases to double its size, so you’ll need up to a 40” cord before you’re done. You’ll also need a cable needle as well as a set of DPNs in the smaller size.

Construction: Dress is knit top down starting with the collar, which is worked in rows. A button is added at the end to close the opening. Then it uses raglan increases for the shoulders. Once the sleeves and body are separated, you’ll knit a couple of inches. Then a garter stitch band is knit, followed by the skirt, which increases rapidly for the open, flowy feel. Cables are knit in the skirt between the wedges of increase.

Using smaller needles, cast on 68. Turn work.

Work 1×1 rib (k1, p1) for 1 inch. Work in rows, not in the round.

Increase round: Place marker and join for working in the round. Increase 4 stitches evenly as you knit one round.

Marker setup: Knit 12 (back left), place marker, knit 12 (left sleeve), place marker, knit 24 (front), place marker, knit 12 (right sleeve), place marker, knit 12 (back right).

Setup round 1: *knit to one stitch before marker, yarn over, knit two, yarn over* Repeat from * to * until one stitch before last marker (8 stitch increase). Be careful not to increase at the beginning of round marker.

Setup round 2: knit around

Repeat these two rounds a total of 8 times. You should have 144 stitches on your needles.

You will now work even (no more increasing) until your yoke measures approximately 5.5 inches from the cast on.

Separate body and sleeves: Knit to first marker. Place all stitches between first and second marker (the sleeve) on hold using waste yarn or a stitch holder. Using backward loop method, cast on 4 stitches. Knit to next marker, then repeat the process of placing sleeve stitches on hold. Knit to beginning of round.

Bodice: Knit every round until work measure approximately 2 inches from the underarm.

Waistband: Work in garter stitch (knit 1 round, purl one round) for 8 rounds, or until your belt measures 1 inch.

Increase for skirt: KFB (knit front and back) into every stitch

Marker setup: Knit 10, place marker, *purl 2, knit 8, purl 2, place marker, knit 20, place marker* Repeat from * to * around. Knit last 10 stitches. This establishes where your cables will go, as well as the increase points of the skirt.

Round 1: Knit to first marker, *purl 2, C6B, purl 2, yarn over, knit to one stitch before next marker, yarn over, knit 1* until last increase marker. Knit the last 10 stitches (being mindful not to increase at the BOR).

C6B: Move three stitches to cable needle, hold in back of work, knit 3 stitches, knit 3 stitches from cable needle.

Rounds 2-3: Work as established, knitting the knits (and YOs) and purling the purls all the way around.

Repeat Rounds 1-3 until your piece measures about 17 inches from the shoulder to the bottom (or 1 inch shorter than what you want the total length to be). You may need to switch to a longer cable as you go.

Switch to smaller needles and work 1×1 rib for 1 inch. Bind off.

Sleeves: Pick up sleeve stitches from waste yarn using DPNs (or magic loop if you prefer) in the smaller size. Knit one round.

Work 1×1 rib for 6 rounds. Bind off. Repeat on other sleeve.

Weave in ends and block your dress. Then find a pretty little girl to put it on and share your pictures with me on Instagram @ladybugdaydreams!

I am working on developing this dress in larger sizes, so stay tuned for that – though it will likely be quite a while. If you’re a knitter who’s interested in helping me out by making this dress in other sizes, contact me and we’ll work something out!

Blessings,

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Adjusting a Sweater Pattern

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I’ve been knitting long enough now to have some confidence in what I’m doing. It’s rather a nice place to be! Today I’m going to talk about how I took a standard pullover sweater pattern (the Flax sweater, a free pattern of which I’ve made numerous iterations) and turned it into a cardigan for Dragonfly. Let’s start with a picture of the sweater I made:

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The sweater pattern in its original form is knit in the round from the top down. This means that starting at the collar and working the neckline, then shoulders, then body, you knit a large tube of fabric that fits around a person. You then come back up to the armpits and knit the sleeves from pit to cuff.

The Flax sweater starts with ribbing at the collar. I changed this to garter stitch, which does two things. First, it matches the texture on the top of the sleeves. Second, because I was working flat instead of in the round (I wanted my sweater to be open in the front, so making a tube didn’t make sense), garter stitch is easier than rib because it’s knit every round (no purl stitches anywhere in sight). I did this for 1.5 inches.

For my sleeves to line up with the front of the sweater, I couldn’t put the markers (indicating where I needed to place my increases for the shoulders) in the same spots as the original pattern. To accommodate the change, I looked at the original pattern and determined which numbers were for the front and back, and which were for the sleeves. I took the front/back number and divided it in half. This gave me the number of stitches I needed for the left half of the front and the right half of the front. I then knit the first half, placed a marker, knit the first sleeve, placed a marker, knit the entire back (no need to divide this one in half), placed a marker, knit the other sleeve, placed a marker, and finally knit the second half of the front. From here on out I was able to follow the pattern as written, with the exception of working in rows instead of rounds.

The yarn I used on this sweater was partially freshly dyed wool for this specific project, partially leftovers from other recent sweaters. I incorporated all of the other colors as stripes in the sweater, and I chose to divide the stripes using a thin stripe of brown. I used that same brown for the collar, waist, wrist cuffs, and button bands.

When knitting the button band that would have the buttonholes (rather than the solid one where I would sew buttons on later), I chose to make a buttonhole at the approximate middle of each color stripe as opposed to placing them evenly all the way down the sweater. Then I found buttons in my stash that matched the colors of the stripes and placed a matching button on each stripe.

That’s it for this sweater! I’ll be starting another “Flax Hack” sweater tonight, so there’ll be another post in a few weeks explaining that one (it’s an adult size sweater for Scorpion, so it’s going to take a while to make).

Blessings,

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