A Finished Object and it's Bloomin' Bloomers

Our wee little model today is sporting a fun little femine number. Hot of the needles, she's got on a soft and summery cotton Girl's Sundress, paired with some hot pink bloomers which are sure to be a hit at all the playgrounds this summer.

I modified the sleeves a bit- the pattern simply calls for ribbing, leaving it slightly more tank top-like. I wanted to cover the little shouders that sunburn so easily without having to put a t-shirt under the dress, so I added a bit of a cap sleeve before doing my ribbing.

I've been meaning to get my little girls some bloomers made for quite some time, and as I knew I was wanting to make some pink ones to go with this dress, I figured I might as well do some assembly line sewing, and turn this-

into this-

plus the pink ones she's wearing, and the pink ones her 3 yr old sister is wearing, and the white and ecru pairs for the 3 yr old that didn't make the pic... I think that makes 8 pairs of bloomers for the day. Not bad, considering all of the laundry I'm still trying to catch up on, and the math lessons we still manged to get in, the music practice, and the outside fun-in-the-sun time... teenager and I are slowly gaining some energy back, meanwhile the littles are as eager to jump and swing and sing aloud as ever (wish I could bounce back like that!)

Back to the sundress- I modified the colorwork, basically doing twice as much as the original design. I like colorwork, and I like lots of brights on my little girls, so I just needed more. I encourage you all to get creative with your knitting. I know many of you are (far more creative than me) but there are still a lot of knitters with bottled up creativity out there, and I want to give you permission to let it out. Change things. Make it striped. Make it longer, shorter, wider, more gathered... whatever suits your fancy. Make it yours. Love it. Enjoy it.

Excuse me, I seem to be I'm waxing philosophical. I do that from time to time. Back to the colorwork. A wrong side shot-

This pattern calls for a pretty loose gauge, so I really tried to keep my stranding loose enough to keep the whole thing laying nice and flat and also allow for a little stretching, as this is a pullover, and I don't know about all of your children, but I've had a couple littles (particularly my last two) that simply panic if a pullover is in anyway constricting during the clothing application process...


I think my favorite part of this dress is the contrasting picot edging- love that tidbit of color and girly scalloped line, so cute!

More photo shoot shots-

She was getting distracted...

by kitties! What little girl wouldn't get distracted by kittens?!

And she'd had enough, so I'll leave you with a shot of the back of the dress, and head in to finish watching the end of Pride & Prejudice...

Happy knitting-

ali