I’ve been meaning to make my daughter a dress for a while now. Clothing is not generally my favorite thing to make, maybe because I don’t like the added requirement of having to focus on my gauge. I can do it, I just don’t enjoy it so I don’t make much clothing from patterns, and I design even fewer – especially with regards to sizing. So when I made this dress I pretty much crocheted it free hand as I went and custom sized it by having her try it on at different stages.
I worked it from the collar down in once piece with four increases at the front and back of the shoulders. Then I chained and skipped stitches for the arm holes and joined in the back so there was an opening for buttons. After this I continued working in rounds and eventually added a row of chain-2, skip-2, dc for a belt. I must not have tried the finished bodice on her before I started the skirt because it’s just a tad longer than I would like.
The white colar at the neck is just shells, and the ruffles at the shoulder are just two rows of 2 double crochets in each stitch.
For the skirt, I basically used a round ripple afghan pattern for the chevrons with a 3 dc decrease at the valleys instead of a skip-2 so there were only holes at the peaks. It worked well for an aesthetic way to increase each round for a full skirt.
I was going to add a shell edging after the last white round, but it looked better when I got to it to just stop there. Then I worked a long chain for the belt. The center part is just single crochets for around the waist, but each end hanging down is a corkscrew curling ribbon. This is way simpler than it may look – just work 3 single crochets in each chain and it naturally curls.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a starting point for making more dresses for her in the future. I probably won’t write this pattern out yet. Maybe after a few more iterations to work out the kinks. Anyway, she loves it because her favorite color is purple.
Stitched In Love Crocheting 