My first dress!

I absolutely love warm, woolen, cozy dresses and I wear them a lot during the colder months of the year. Starting from autumn, until early spring – with nice high boots, a cardi and a scarf wrapped around my neck, they are my favourite winter “uniform”. I have a small collection in my wardrobe, and knitting dresses was one of my ultimate knitting goals and reasons why I wanted to learn at all.

There are a few different dresses in my knitting queue, but I didn’t plan to start working on them any time soon. I just wasn’t sure if I was ready for such large projects! But some time ago I saw this pattern, and decided to give it a try, as it seemed simple enough. However when I checked project photos on Ravelry, I noticed that the ribbed part of the skirt makes the dress very tight, which is not what I wanted. That’s why I decided to knit all the skirt in plain stockinette, and additionally, while the upper part is knitted in size M, the skirt is in size L.

That was a good decision! The dress is just as I like: with above knee length, not too close fitting, so I can feel comfortable wearing thick winter tights, and decreasing the bottom garter stitch edge gave it a delicate “tulip shape”. I feel really good in it!

I chose Stylecraft Alpaca Tweed DK in Denim shade for this project. It’s soft and super squishy, knits fast, and I love the dense fabric of the dress. When I started knitting I was a little worried because the fabric felt very heavy, but somehow I don’t have that impression now when the dress is finished, or maybe I just got used to it? I like the faux tweed and the colour of the dress. It will look fine with more colourful tights or scarfs, but it’s also not too dark or gloomy on its own.

And just between you and me: this yarn was bought to knit a jumper for the Boyfriend. But then I saw another yarn that I decided to buy for him, and so I had all this Stylecraft left, and I just had to do something with it, right? 😉

It took 9 days to finish the dress, which is much better than I expected, and the only part that I didn’t enjoy knitting were the sleeves. The whole dress is made in one piece and knitting the sleeves required turning the whole dress around all the time, which was a little annoying… but not too much 😉

I’d like to show you how the dress looks on me, because it’s the only way to really see its shape and drape, but unfortunately I’m on my own for a couple of days, and my mirror photos look strangely disfigured. So maybe one winter day, when it’s cold enough to wear it, will be the best time for the photo session 🙂

And to be honest, winter feels much more exciting and welcome now!