Thursday 22 March 2018

Xania Dress

One night I was lying in bed and couldn't drop off to sleep, kept thinking about yarn and knitting, so I got my phone out and started browsing patterns on Ravelry (not a sleep-aid I know). Ended up on the Pickles pattern page and from there to their website where I found the Xania dress! (now on Ravelry by the way).
Xania turned out to be another of those projects which I really wanted to knit straight away, a lovely combination of mohair and merino yarns in the lovely Pickles colourways. I chose the dusky red/pink of the original and was DELIGHTED when my yarn arrived, the plump Merino or whatever it's called (can't remember) is the softest, squishiest stuff - absolutely scrumptious yarn.
So I cast it on, learnt how to do fisherman's rib stitch and knit the dress up over the Christmas holidays. Here it is!


There were a few things I wasn't 100% happy with. The first was the weight of the dress, I found it pretty heavy to wear. The second was the very visible increases at the yoke, I wasn't too keen on that section visually. The third was that after wearing it for a few hours, it sort of morphed into a big shapeless sack on me. It's a shame as I really loved it in the Pickles photos. I definitely made it too long, it would probably be more flattering as a mini-dress. Lessons learnt there, I was very determined to use all of the yarn up but, well that was silly as I ended up with a dress which was too long.




Looking miserable as sin. Miserable/angry! Honestly, I always say this but I find it so difficult to model my knits... I could crop my head out of the photos but I think it looks a bit weird, a headless photo.



But hey ho, Xania is out of my system now! I've unravelled it (this bit was fun) and plan on knitting the yarn up into a big soft sofa blanket, probably following Sylvia McFadden's new pattern, Equal Night. I saw the smaple for Equal Night on the Coffee and Craft podcast on YouTube - it looks gorgeous.


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