Here's one of those "sweater-sized" projects I mentioned last week. Here is the link to mine on ravelry, here is the link to the (free!) pattern on ravelry. The instant I saw the pattern, of course, I thought, I must make this while I still have a little girl to make it for. Clemmie loves dresses, and dressing up, and being fancy, so I was certain she would love this dress. Well, when I got about halfway through knitting it, and showed it to her, she was less than thrilled, and no amount of reverse psychology seemed to take effect on her. ("Maybe we should give this dress to Emmylou." "Yes, okay, let's give it to Emmylou!"). Bribery didn't help much either. ("How about if we get fancy shoes to wear only with your Easter dress?" "I don't want to wear that dress.") Guilt trips worked a little bit. ("Don't you like the dress Mommy made you?" "No, I don't like it." "Oh, that makes Mommy so sad!" "Okay, just joking, I like it." "Want to try it on, then?" "No."). I'm ashamed to say that all these tactics were tried multiple times. Probably shouldn't admit that, but my guess is that most mamas who knit have experienced this a time or two...
Finally, after the dress was washed and blocked, and I could see that the dress was a little too big for this Easter, even though I wanted it to brush the floor, like in the pattern photos, I gave up on the idea of it being a 2017 Easter dress. However, she was much more receptive to the dress once buttons and ribbon were added, and the lace design showed up so nicely. She's actually somewhat happy in these photos, and has tried it on a couple additional times, and grown more receptive to the long, fancy dress idea. However, after she went outside a couple of times and climbed on the swing and walked around a bit, I could see that it truly was going to be too long to wear for a bit, and in fact, the hem began to get dirty. So I've stowed it away for now. I hope she will get to have quite a few occasions to wear it in the future. One fun thing I thought of was to change the buttons and the ribbon color to match the season. Hopefully with a little more height, and a little more maturity on Clemmie's part, the dress will see some use. No matter what, I'm keeping it. One day, years, and years, and YEARS down the road, I may have a little granddaughter who may like it more than Clemmie does.
