The Swatching Process

     Over the past few days I think I've nailed down the basic plan for my wedding dress!  I am knitting a sideways band for a wide neckline which will show some neck and shoulder skin, and the rest of the dress will be wide and flowy from there down.  I'm already pretty settled on the stitch patterns, too! For the neckband I will use a smocking stitch...

...and from there down it will be stockinette fading into some simple clusters of eyelets, starting with just a few and then more and more around the bottom of the dress.

     The next step is to figure out exactly how wide it will need to be for the look I'm going for.  I did a stockinette swatch in the round (since that part of the dress will be knit in the round, it's important to ensure my tension will be consistent) and found that I'm getting between 4-4.25 sts/inch.  So I'm starting by casting on for a little over 40 inches (six-plus inches of ease, which may or may not be enough).  Since I don't know what my eventual pattern repeat will be for the lacy section, I wanted to keep it flexible by choosing a number, in the range of 40", that was divisible by many other numbers. 168 is divisible by 3, 4, 7, 12, 24, and many more, so I am starting there.

     If this seems to be the right width, my next step will be to knit through one full ball in order to predict how many it will take to get my full length.  Here's hoping 168 is the magic number!

#bridebrain

I know I've been the WORST and not kept up with this blog at all, but that's about to change starting right now!

Ned and I got engaged this past Christmas Eve.  We have always planned to elope for our wedding.  I'll go into specifics another time, but suffice it to say that our wedding will be completely non-traditional.  It will be outdoors in a place where I can't exactly have my hair blown out and makeup done for me.  The one and only detail that is important to me is to wear a white dress that makes me feel beautiful.  I hadn't really thought much about the dress until a couple of days ago when I told one of my favorite customers (at the knitting shop where I work) that I was engaged, and she asked me if I was making anything for the wedding.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since!

In general I'm not a fan of knitted wedding gowns, at least not just for the sake of being knitted wedding gowns.  For me to knit my wedding dress, there must be a good reason why it would be knitted and not store bought, not woven material, etc.  I woudn't want to emulate a gown that could be bought.  However.  I am getting married in the last days of August, amongst a lot of hiking, camping, and canoeing with my love.  I need my dress to be light, loose, casual, flowy, comfortable, and fit for a goddess of the outdoors.  Not too hippie-ish, but somewhat.  Does that give you a good mental picture?

So today I was back at work and talking with my co-worker Karin, as we often do on slow days, about our current and potential projects.  I have been a finishing queen lately and feeling very justified in starting a new project.  Really, it's the best feeling in the world.  So I was obviously very excited and showed her the Rowan Pure Linen that I thought might be perfect for this dress.  She immediately shared my vision and said all the right things ("think about how much money you're SAVING by knitting this dress.") and so now I am totally committed.  Not only was she excited for my project, but she actually ended up buying some of the yarn in another color to knit a top from Rowan's Pure Linen Collection.  It's a Pure Linen knit-a-long!

The crunchiest, most perfect white linen.