Skip to content

Hatchling

I have a secret, blog friends. I’ve been keeping something from you.

It’s nothing personal! I just started working on a project, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it in the grand scheme of things, so I was keeping it to myself. I’m still not sure what sort of end game I’m going for with this thing, but it’s been lingering for a little while and I’ve had this constant, nagging thought that if I blogged about the project, then I’d get back into the swing of knitting it, that I’d rediscover the joy of figuring out a design as I’m going along, that I’d finally sit down and do the damned math to figure out the decreases in a yoked sweater dress.

Yep. Sweater dress. A purple seamless yoke sweater dress with elbow-length sleeves.

Don’t look at me like that. Here let me distract you with a picture.

purple sweater dress

(Yep, someone had some fun with Polyvore. PS, that’s totally Thea Colman’s new Gibson Girl top in purple; I’m still debating the collar treatment but when I saw her purple top with it’s portrait collar, I got a little buzz of excitement, so I may be borrowing her idea.)

I have decided that, for the time being, there is not going to be a pattern at the end of this. Rather, there are going to be (hopefully) detailed notes and “here’s what I did” stories so that if you just have to have your own knitted sweater dress (and really, who doesn’t? ::crickets::), you can recreate this process on your own, with whatever yarn you choose in whatever color you chose—though I have to say, purple is a pretty flattering color.

For my own purposes, I’m using Quince & Co’s Chickadee in the Frank’s Plum colorway. This “sport weight” (quotations because it’s SUPER lofty and not tightly spun, so I’m actually knitting it at DK weight gauge and getting the perfect fabric) was actually really affordable for the fourteen skeins I bought (who knows how many yards a sweater dress takes?!), and so far I’m really pleased with how it’s turning out!

Hopefully later this week I’ll be back with notes on how I began the process of planning this sweater dress. My goal is to provide a usable “template” for other people to try out the process of designing your own garments, but part of this will rely on questions from the audience, so if you have any questions at all along the way, pipe up!

9 Comments

  1. naelany naelany

    Ohhh! Lovely idea! Can’t wait to see! One thing I’m always afraid of with dresses and skirts is sagging and stretching. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. You’ll be sharing process pictures, right?

    Right?

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      Sagging and stretching can be a concern with any knitted garment, which is just one reason yarn choice and garment construction are key. 😀 This is designed to be a fairly swingy skirt, so hopefully stretching or sagging won’t be an issue. I will be sharing process photos… as soon as I take some. 😀

  2. B B

    Ooh! I like sweater dresses! I approve of this idea!

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      Yay! 😀

  3. Regina Regina

    woo hoo! you’re finally knitting a dress! I can’t wait to see you in it! I just know that it will be gorgeous! this might just inspire me to finish up my koigu dress!

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      Well, keep your eyes peeled, because it’s taken me about 6 months to get to the point where I have to start doing math for the yoke decreases. After that there’s the collar to consider and the entire skirt to knit, so… maybe by the end of the year? 😉

  4. This is very exciting. I love the idea and I’m so excited to see your process. I have been wanting to try designing my own garments but I’m so nervous!!!

    • threadpanda threadpanda

      Oh good! Other people being excited will hopefully keep me on track and motivated to keep up with this. 🙂

Leave a Reply to Regina Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.