Babydoll progress

I spent most of the past weekend working on my Babydoll dress. Of course, there might have been a short expedition to downtown La Jolla where I might have "accidentally" bought two back issues of Interweave Knits (Winter 2005 and Winter 2006). The Winter 2006 had at least 5 patterns that I really love. "Love" is the keyword. I don't think I'm nowhere near that level to create them yet, but one can always hope. And I also "accidentally" bought another bottle of Soak (this time in the Flora scent) because the salesgirl seemed genuinely nice and helpful. Okay, okay. It was not an accident. I can't seem to help myself when it comes to knitting/crochet related materials. The good news is that the back issues were only $2 each. :-)

Back to the topic, the lovely Babydoll dress. Unfortunately, my dress is not coming out quite so lovely. I finished assembling the bodice and actually wove in all the ends (to prevent future laziness in finishing the dress). However, the lace section started coming out too small. Therefore, I frogged and tried again. I didn't want to frog the ribbing section or else I would be basically starting over from scratch. After adding a round of increases and doing a couple inches of lace, it was coming out flared and too big! Gah! So I frogged again and did another couple inches. Still too small. I frogged all the lace last night and now I am seriously considering to rip out the ribbing section and start anew.

Frogged section (note the wide flare):

What do you think? When I try on the bodice section, it comes out very close-fitting. (Plus, if you look closely, one of the shoulder straps is longer than the other one and one of the bodice halves is wider than the other.)

I think I will let it sit tonight, and work on something quick and easy. Last month, I bought this Etsy pattern and yesterday my Joann's order of Clover circular needles and that truly hard-to-find size L crochet hook arrived. Tomorrow, my order from WEBS consisting of Cascade 220 and Berroco Ultra Alpaca will be arriving. I never thought I would actually say this, but I think I might have to turn to knitting to take a break from this dress.

Speaking of knitting, I love seeing how knit and crochet fashions are becoming trendy in stores. I was cruising the Bloomingdale's website earlier and I found this sweater.

Isn't it pretty? It's on sale for $82.99, down from $139. (Which to me, still isn't a sale!)

And I found this American Eagle Babydoll Cardigan on Ravelry...

It's on sale for $34.95 at the AE website, but I haven't seen it in stores.

And look, crochet sweaters are becoming popular! I am so happy for crochet! Although I knit too, my first love will always be crochet and I feel sad whenever I hear/see knitters dissing crochet.