FO: Babydoll Dress

This dress took me about a month to complete. After much frogging, frustration, and time, here she is!

Pattern: Babydoll Dress from Interweave Crochet Spring 2008
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Putty
Amount: 5 balls
Size: 32" bust
Hooks: E, G, H (yeah my gauge is always weird)

Man, I do have red eyes...

And should probably clean my mirrors before the photoshoot...

And here is my take on the classic 1960s sideways tilt angle that I see in vintage crochet/knitting magazines...

Last, but not least, here is the back...

If I ever decide to make another one, I would probably make it in the size 34" bust. I went down one size to create negative ease, but apparently the bodice section already has a bit of negative ease built in.

Babydoll frogged and redone

I never got around to making the newsboy cap last night because I decided to give the dress another whirl before completely frogging. And I am glad I did. After using a H hook and rethinking the set-up single crochet (crochet in every single stitch vs. crochet in every other stitch), I finally got it to fit me!

Updated progress picture:

Yay! No flare, or can't-even-fit-over-head syndrome!

And my WEBS order finally arrived today! I came home from work and checked the mail, but no luck. I live in an apartment complex, and quite often packages can get stolen which left me fretting. That is, until I noticed a UPS truck located a building away from me. Wasting no time, I dashed upstairs, printed out a copy of package tracking record, and leaped back down the stairs to the UPS truck. I showed the guy my sheet and lo, and behold, HE HAD THE PACKAGE!!!! Whew! I was so relieved! Last Christmas, my friend Christine sent me Friends Season 6 and it was delivered to my door, but ended up stolen. Thank god, I was there to safely rescue my $100 order of yarn. (Hey, it was on sale!)

Pictures of my new yarn. Is it weird I held them up to my cheeks, cuddled them, and whispered sweet nothings into their...strands? :-D

And a side view...

Sorry I am not a very good photographer. I own a Canon PowerShot SD550, but I have yet to learn the cool intricacies of my camera.

The list...

2 skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Woodland Mix (for a Irish Hiking Scarf or Newsboy Hat)

5 skeins of Cascade 220 in Burgundy (for a Bluebell Boatneck)

5 skeins of Cascade 220 in Olive Heather (for a Bluebell Boatneck)

3 skeins of Cascade 220 in Dark Plum (for a Back to School U-neck Vest)

3 skeins of Cascade 220 in Straw (for a Back to School U-neck Vest).

Now that I have actually seen and fondled Cascade 220, I am sorely tempted to go back and buy more next month. (What has happened to the frugal girl I once was?!) This is the best sale of the year for Cascade 220. They were only $4.89 per skein. Hopefully, it will last me about 6-9 months worth of projects?

Well, I'm off to do more work on my babydoll. Ciao!

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.

Babydoll Dress

I received my trial issue of the Winter 2007 Interweave Crochet magazine a couple weeks ago, but I wasn't sure if I was going to fully subscribe. Of course, this was until I realized they put up the preview for the Spring issue earlier this week.

And there it was...

The pattern I had fallen in love with at first sight...

The babydoll dress!

And sleeve detailing...

Yay! I was so excited that I immediately paid for the subscription. Hehe. I checked the IC website earlier, and it said my mag will probably be mailed out on 4/17. But it comes out on newstands on 4/1! Sigh. I don't live near any places that carry IC. After taking a stroll around my neighborhood Von's last night, I discovered they carried two knitting magazines: Interweave Knits and Knit Simple. Can you imagine that? Two knitting magazines, but not one single crochet magazine! Oh, the injustice in this world!

I think I will go order the Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece for this pattern to appease myself.