Riff Dress

Just finished a dress.

In light of my recent addition to the stash (though really, I haven't been adding to the herd much this past year or so), I feel as though I should put on a proper show of stashbusting at the very least. Granted, the Rosebleed shawl was also knit using yarn dug out from somewhere around the middle layers of my stash, time-wise; I purchased both this teal cotton and the studioloo lacey loo at the same time at the Knitter's Frolic a couple of years back. Maybe there's an incubation period that yarn has to go through before I can finally use it? (Though I'm not sure what that means for all the yarn that I bought when I first started into the knitting abyss and have yet to use...)

Anyway, this dress was a riff off the Country Garden Top pattern, using completely different yarn & needles producing a different gauge and completely disregarding the pattern altogether save the feather and fan bib. I also took the idea of knitting the straps past the front and attaching everything at the back. And that's basically it. So I think of the Country Garden Top pattern as more of an inspiration than anything, but I'm also veering heavily towards "let's not make a pattern out of this".

More slip dress-like than I planned

I was aiming for a summery dress, and to be sure, this fits the bill, but I overestimated how much 40" would be once it went completely around the bottom hem of the dress, so it's a bit less voluminous than I wanted it to be. In hindsight, I should have skipped the A-line shaping altogether and did heavier decreases at the top, just under the front bib, to get a more dramatic shape out of it, but I suppose this is fine too. It came out rather more slip-like than babydoll dress-like, but I think I can work with this - and it supports layering!

The yarn gives this dress wonderful drape, as you can see in the photo above, and the cotton makes it heavy enough to actually hang down rather than float about me, which I sometimes get when working with light wool. I was afraid that I was playing yarn chicken throughout - the original plan was actually to introduce another yarn to colourblock the straps/back because I thought I might not have enough yarn - until I realized that the first skein of yarn (out of two) took me well past half of the entire dress. It would probably have worked out just about perfectly if I had skipped the body decreases and just knit a straight tube up until the armholes, but alas. I'm pretty happy with how the back turned out, though! It's a bit of a hassle in terms of making it work with a bra, but isn't it always? And the straps going all the way from the front to the back was a nice touch, which I probably wouldn't have done normally, so I'm glad I took a look at the Country Garden Top pattern (if only just to double check that what I thought was feather and fan lace was actually feather and fan lace).

Not as sheer as I'd feared, either!

The entirety of the pattern I drafted was worked out on the yarn label, so there isn't much to go off of, and I'm not sure I really want to write this one out at all, as I mentioned above. We'll see if I ever do it, but in case you're interested in knitting this up yourself, here's the recipe:

• It's an A-line dress, knit bottom-up.
• CO a multiple of 18 sts for the bottom hem (the feather and fan pattern is an 18 st repeat)
• I cast on 40", but I would maybe suggest even 50~56" if you want to do the body decreases throughout to get a nicer silhouette
• If you want the A-line like I did, decrease slowly up to the armholes
• You don't want to decrease down to your bust measurement though! You're going to be doing *k1, k2tog* or some variation thereof (I think just k2tog to end, or even *k1, k3tog* might be better), so make the calculations as to how many stitches you need before starting out the armhole shaping
• Keep in mind also that you'll be binding off about 1" each side of both front & back pieces! Those you don't need to account for in terms of the decrease row.
• I also think it might be better if we keep the decreases to the front bib (but do it all along the back), but that's up to you. The ribbing of the strap does help ease the look.
• Armhole decreases/shaping (do this in reasonably few rows, because you want the pleats/gathers to be right over your bust - I decreased one stitch/side, every row, 3x)
• Gathers row: whatever variation of this you decide on, just do it across to get to the measurement you need to cover your front
• Keep in mind that the ribbed straps will pull in a bit, so keep a few stitches (or just don't do the decreases as heavily) in the strap area to accommodate for this
• I forgot to do this, personally, and remedied it by pu&k around the outer edge of the armhole, which worked
• Mark off however large you want the front bib to be and start feather & fan lace, placing markers to mark off where the ribbing starts/ends and where to work the lace
• Work even until high enough for you, then BO all feather & fan lace part
• Work straps individually until it goes around to the back, minus however high you want the back neck to be.
• I worked the back piece armhole shaping and all that just past the gathers row so it was ready for grafting while I was here, also. Just use another skein or use the other end of the ball of yarn you've got.
• Long-tail CO back neck stitches using scrap yarn and knit across to join both straps to main body piece once more.
• Work in rib until long enough to reach back piece.
• Graft together using kitchener stitch. I'm not sure if it's necessary, but I made sure to adjust the instructions for whenever I saw that it was a purl stitch next rather than a knit stitch (because one side is ribbing), to make it a smoother transition. I know this is something that makes the work look better if both sides are ribbing/not stockinette, but I'm sure it would have blended in just fine even if you just do the regular ol' kitchener.
• If you would like to add some stability to your straps, PU&K around outer armhole (I didn't even count, but I did just pick up every edge stitch I saw - I slipped first stitch of every strap row, so you might actually want to do a different pickup rate)
• I didn't do that for the inside, because I liked how it looked better without, but feel free to do whatever!

I know you're thinking there's no way I could possibly have written all this onto one yarn label, but that's because I was making stuff up on the fly as well. It's mostly just the calculations, so it really does fit on just a few lines!

Have fun!