A Christening Dress Update

I can't believe how this little dress has consumed me. I am really enjoying the process of knitting this project! I have finished the first edging and have picked up the 200+ stitches for the body.

The skirt of the dress is comprised of six sections: the edging, lace holes, half madeiras, lace holes, zigzag of madeiras and waves. As of this morning, the edging and the first of the lace holes are finished and I'm working on the half madeiras.

I think I mentioned that, for the edging, I went up from the called-for 2.0 mm needle to a 2.25 mm needle. Well, now that the edging is finished, I've gone to the 2.0 mm needle for the body. I'm hoping that that will give the edging a little bit of "ruffling" when the dress is finished. I'm also thinking of making one minor modification to the pattern. As I wrote above, the patterning finishes with a wave pattern (more of a zigzag, really, but it's called "waves"). I'm thinking that, on the first skirt I'll eliminate the waves. I'm not sure I really like it, and if I decide it should be part of the dress anyway, I can leave it in the second skirt, which is layered over the first, but shorter. Did/does that make sense?

In the picture below, I've included my original pattern swatch, just for the sake of comparison. The swatch was knit on 4.0 mm needles, the edging on 2.25 mm.

As you know, I knit a lot of lace. Or, more correctly, I do a lot of knitted lace. This christening dress qualifies as lace knitting.

What's the difference, you ask? Well, in knitted lace, only one side of the work is patterned. The wrong side (usually) is worked in either a knit stitch (garter stitch lace) or a purl stitch (stocking stitch lace). With lace knitting, there is patterning on every row. This little dress is lace knitting.

Once I have this panel finished, I'll have to repeat the entire process for the second skirt.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of other knitting this week. As I said at the beginning of this post, this little dress has consumed most of my knitting time this week. It's one of those projects where you want to see how the next section knits up.

I have a feeling there won't be a lot of knitting time today, though. We're going to be helping a friend/co-worker move this morning. I don't think it will be a long process as she's very organized and another co-worker found some young guys to help with the grunt work. This afternoon is Sit & Stitch, but the dress isn't really take-along knitting.

Speaking of Sit & Stitch, if you're in the Kelowna area and would like to meet up with other knitters, please feel free to join us. We've had to move our location (the mall put in a passport office where we like to sit and knit) to the Starbuck's at the corner of Gordon & Guisachan. We'll be there from about 2-4 p.m. today (and every other Saturday). We'd love to have more knitters join us!

Now, it's time for another cup of coffee and another row on the dress. Enjoy your weekend!