Cue the Olympic Music!

I finished the third dress last night, after the girls were in bed. Otherwise I would have posted pictures then. As it was, I had to wait until this afternoon to get the last pictures taken. I know you've seen some of these pictures already, but I wanted to put them all together in one post. So here they are!

Angel

Princess

Kitty

And here are all three together!

I totally did not plan this out; having all the hems the same distance from the floor. ☺It just worked out that way.

I'm pretty proud of my Olympic efforts. I suppose most people wouldn't think knitting should qualify as an Olympic sport, but then why are my hands and arms so tired? Ha ha. This is as athletic as I get these days. Though I am working on that; I've decided to get in shape....I'll let you know how that goes. So far, I've lost two pounds, I think.

Anyway, back to the dresses...I love the way these turned out. I'm already planning on making some more, in other colors. I'm thinking with the next ones, I'll do some kind of lacy pattern. And for the skirts, I've got some great floral fabric....

An "oops" fixed.

Okay, I know I said that Princess's dress was second...and I totally intended for it to be. I was knitting along, spacing the buttonholes exactly how I far apart I spaced them for Kitty's, and I decided that would be fine, and I would just make it so that it had five buttons instead of four. Then it would be long enough for Princess. So that's what I did. And it turned out too long for Princess's torso. It hung to her hips. I wanted the bodices to all end just a bit above their natural waists. So I tried it on Angel, and it fit perfectly; she and Princess have the same chest/waist measurement right now. But Angel's torso is longer than Princess's. For that matter, so are her legs. Long, and slim. She's built like my younger sisters. Anyway, Princess was disappointed that it wasn't hers, but I assured her that I'd be able to get hers done pretty quickly, and without any mistakes...at least that's the plan. So, yesterday, I got the skirt attached, and I'm glad I made it two inches longer than I'd originally planned. My girls love long dresses, and it should fit her all summer. And here's a pic of Angel, in her Olympic dress!

I've got less than half a week to finish the third one. Anybody want to take bets on whether I get done before the end of the Closing Ceremonies? I cast on for Princess's dress (again) last night, and got into the beginning of the stranded "USA" section, before my hands cramped up and made me quit. Planning on making some serious progress today. Gotta love the pressure...why did I take two days off from my project to work on something else?!? I'll post about the "something else" next time. ☺

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In completely unrelated news...Laura(of the "Laura Shawl") had her final chemo treatment yesterday. She'll have surgery again soon, this time to reverse her colostomy, and then after recovering from that, she'll be able to move back into some semblance of normalcy. I'm so happy for her. To my readers who joined in praying for her, thank you.

First of three dresses done!

I started on Friday, at exactly 6:30 pm, when the coverage of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies began. I decided to start with Kitty's dress, since she's the smallest of my girls, and I knew hers would get done most quickly.
I knitted just the top half of the dress. It's essentially a top-down seamless raglan cardigan, with short sleeves. I did garter stitch borders at the neckline, sleeve edges, waistline and button band(which is in the back). The rest is stockinette, with the "USA" stranded on the front. I used a dk-weight recycled cotton, and a size 4 circular needle. When it came time to separate the sleeves from the body, I simply bound them off and continued on the body.

I sewed the skirt on the machine, and attached it to the bodice by hand. The knit fabric of the bodice wasn't cooperating with the machine; it was stretching and distorting, so after stitching about two inches, I knew I was going to start over and do it by hand. Doing it that way gave me a lot more control, over both the knit fabric, and the skirt. The stitching line went in the "valley" between two purl ridges, and is invisible.

And here's what the back looks like. The buttons aren't anything special, just some plain white ones I had in my button stash. But they work.

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Kitty loves her dress, and Princess and Angel can't wait for me to get theirs done. But it's chilly here this week, so Kitty has to wait to wear hers anyway. I started on Princess's dress the same day I finished the knitting on Kitty's, and last night I finished the stranded "USA" part. I'm getting close to being able to bind off the sleeves. ☺

The Olympics are coming!

I'm sure, if you are a knitter, you've heard of some sites that do Olympic challenges; Ravelry and YarnHarlot being two of them. Well, I'm not on Ravelry, since they banned me and my friends last year without cause(Thanks, Casey, I've gotten so much more knitting and designing done since I wasn't wasting time on your site! And no, that's not sarcasm)...so I can't participate in their version of Olympics, with all of its rules and regulations...I'd be surprised if they allowed projects that are patriotic in nature; it might offend someone. (whew, okay, enough snarkiness; even thinking about Ravelry brings that out in me. Sorry) And, since I have nothing of a personal nature to say about YarnHarlot(except that I sure wouldn't have picked a moniker like that), I'll just say I'm not a fan of hers, so I'm not participating in hers either.

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I am a member of another site for yarn artists, and we're having our own Olympic challenge. Originally, the idea was to pick a project with techniques you haven't done before, and since it's the Winter Olympics, to make it a winter project. But we tend to 'go with the flow' on our site, and since we're actually friends with each other, we decided there's no need for stringent rules. ☺ Since I live in Texas, and Christmas is over, I'm already thinking of spring and summer with my knitting. And there's nothing wrong with that. ☺ So anyway, I decided to do a project with a little bit of Fair-Isle, since that technique frightens me a little. Here's a swatch, and the fabric to go with it...
After making that swatch, I decided that I'm actually going to use thinner yarn, so I had to go find a white cotton sweater(to take apart) with the right gauge of yarn to match up with the red cotton yarn, which I got from a sweater last year. The red is actually a little darker than the red in my swatch, but not quite burgundy. Since the blue in the fabric is so dark, I decided that would be okay. And yes, that swatch was knit from the top-down, instead of the bottom-up; this project is going to be a little girls' sundress, in which the top half will be knitted top-down, in raglan style, and the bottom half will be a fabric skirt. The USA part will be on the front of the bodice, naturally. I'm not starting with the knitting yet, not until the Opening Ceremonies, but I'm getting all of the calculating out of the way, so that I can jump right in when it's time.

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In other knitting news, "Cathie" is almost done. It looks great, if I do say so myself. And I hope Cathie likes it as well! I haven't worked on "Surf" at all since I started on "Cathie"... need to get back to that as soon as "Cathie" is done.

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