YOP update and some Major (crochet) surgery

This week I have 5 finished projects and I'm so glad to be able to work on something else for a change.

I have my crochet baby dress (Frilly Dress) finished finally but there were some problems.  It is a beautiful dress and I love it but there are some errors in the pattern; some were fixed and the pattern updated but they didn't fix them all.  I made notes of the problems I found as I worked on my Ravelry project page here. Besides those more obvious mistakes the straps are too long.  I'm new at making baby clothes and my kids are grown so I didn't realize until too late that the straps were way too long and besides that they stretch out under the weight of the dress and it ends up looking like a vintage strongman's outfit.  With the help of someone in a facebook crochet group who shared this chart I learned that the straps should be about 2.25" so now I have to fix them. I've never had to fix something like this before and I did a lot of googling to see if someone else had a better way but of course I found nothing.  I also asked in the crochet group but other than lots of suggestions on how much I should shorten the straps or that I should add buttons etc, I got no suggestions on the actual process.  So here is what I decided to do with some pictures.

Here is a picture showing the straps laying flat.  I measured 3.5" and I decided to take out about 1.5".  I turned the dress inside-out and safety-pinned the two layers together so it wouldn't shift while working on it.  I measured back from the top of the shoulder about 2" and placed a safety pin there.  Then I used matching sewing thread and sewed a line just above the pin.  I took scissors (and prayed) and snipped across at the top of the shoulders and then used the eye of a needle to pick out the stitches (much easier said than done) leaving me with long lengths of yarn to work with.  The trim on this is added after the main body was complete so I had to pick that out separately and then had to use a safety pin to hold the the last loop to

keep it from unraveling past my new seam.  In this picture (left) you can see my safety pin holding the two layers together but you probably can't see the hand sewn stitches across I made with sewing thread.  This was a very slow process and took a lot of patience since the stitches didn't easily come out and where I wove in the ends in from my edging I really had a tough time.  After I got everything unraveled to one row above my sewn line I used a darning needle and used the lavender yarn from one side to seam the two sides together and then carefully wove in the ends, including the lavender yarn from the other side.  Then I had to use the darning needle to sew the edging sides together to look like it was uninterrupted.  I also folded the seamed section (which is about a half inch) to one side and secured it in place.

Besides the strap issue, this dress is not really very practical and is more of a photo-op dress.  The skirt is so full and heavy with yarn that it would probably be hard for a child this age, who is just learning to walk, to walk in without falling.  This dress is pretty much floor length.  Another person on ravelry who made this dress told me it is very difficult to fasten the car seat strap over the bulk of the dress so it is better to wait to put the dress on after coming out of the car seat.  I think it would be much better to make the newborn to 3 month size since there are less problems with it than with the larger sizes. There are less rounds (so less increases and less bulk). Plus, from what I can see most of the errors are in the larger sizes.

So now that I'm done it looks like this.  These pictures are dark since it is night time now so the color is actually much lighter.

My second finished project was a headband to match.  I used this free pattern for the band except that I only used 5 stitches so it would be narrower.  I also used left over yarn from the dress which is DK so I used an E hook or 3.5mm.   I used this free pattern for the columbine flower.

My third project was a quick little crochet washcloth which was a CAL with the ravelry group called Dishcloth Weekly Knitalong.  They have KAL/CALS using free patterns every week and is a fun group of people.  

Flower Power dishcloth

The next two patterns were also quick ones.  I finished them both on Saturday even though it is still

Weeping Willow Sun hat (free pattern)

raining continuously and I've been in even more pain then before because of a Fibromyalgia flare up.  Some areas are on flood watch actually because of all the rain.  It had been drizzling pretty consistently for quite a while but the last couple days we have been getting heavier rain.  I actually slept most of the day and spent the time I was awake in bed/pajamas.

I had planned to make this hat for my great niece Maya in her great grandmother's favorite color red. She is only two and never got to meet her great grandma who passed away in 2008.  I made this hat to go with a cute little heart-shaped purse I made her in May.  I sewed a zippered pouch (putting in my first zipper ever) and I used a red vintage zipper from my mom's sewing table.  My mom would be so happy to know I used something of hers to make this little gift for her great grand-daughter.

While I was working on that hat, Buddy the beagle baby kept stealing my ball of yarn or the project. I had already noticed he seems to really like the color red (or dark pink) and anytime I try to work with that color I have to fight him off.  Since he just turned 4 months old I thought I should make him a little toy using red yarn.  I came up with my own pattern that I will write up later and post here on my blog.  For now I want to see how this first one holds up.  Here is Buddy's Squeaky Bug which he really loves.

Well, this week was fun and I really enjoyed being able to work on some new things.  I can't wait to see what next week brings - hopefully sun.