A little over a year ago I decided to knit a dress for myself. I bought the yarn, did some swatching and started to knit.

My father’s illness and subsequent passing sort of put everything on hold.

Yesterday I pulled out my knitting and decided it was time to start it again.

Would you like to knit a dress for yourself? Come and knit one with me. It is free. It is “pithy”, to quote Elizabeth Zimmerman and it (the pattern) will be very flexible. This will be a creative recipe, a guideline, not a hard and fast pattern that you can only knit one way!

This pattern is designed for intermediate knitters with some experience with lace knitting. The lace patterning will not be difficult, in fact knitting the skirt could be a little repetitive and boring. Shaping, and fitting the top of the dress could be a little challenging. But by then you may be a professional lace knitter.

Dress pattern will be written and charted.

The dress is knit in panels. The dress starts at the hem and will be shaped to fit loosely at the waist and darted to fit a bust line. There will be sleeves, but as they will be fitted they could be omitted to turn the dress into a sleeveless dress or jumper. I am sort of putting in three sizes. Right now those sizes refer to the hem. How wide do you want your hem? These sizes were created from my gauge.

There are two panels to choose from. One (titled Skirt) will give you a lace panel at the hem and a solid skirt (the shaping will still work in the panels, these panels will also be solid knit)(no picture available). This was my first idea. Then I decided I wanted more lace and less plain knitting. I suffer from boredom without patterning.

The other panel (titled Dress Panel), the one I will be working, will create linear lines of lace up the skirt, through the shaping and into the bodice. Work the first 29 rounds as written and then repeat rounds 30 – 39 for the rest of the skirt.

Please note – the shaping panels have not been written as yet. They will be added when I get there, maybe in about 4 months. So don’t hurry your knitting along. I will not be.

My gauge is roughly 5 inches per panel (dry stretched, and pinned) I am expecting that the actual hem may be a bit larger.

Why Panels?
Panels will allow the knitter to easily add or take away panels to the cast-on (how full do you want your hem to be?) and then remove them when I start adding the reducing panels. I recommend adding repeats in either, twos or threes – to make the later shaping easier. So you can take away the stitches evenly around your skirt.

Each Panel is 21 sts – 5 inches.

I am working with Lopi Einband – a heavy laceweight (or light fingering). I have approx. 2500m in my stash. I am working with undyed yarn so that I can dye it later. For a longer or fuller skirt up to 3000m of yarn might be required.

You can work with any yarn from light fingering to sport/light DK. The needle size is 4.0mm US #6 circular.

Here is a link to a forum thread that I have started with some possible yarn choices.

You will need to work a circular swatch to check your gauge. Or not, a swatch is just for your information.

By the way – my size is 50 inch hips, 42 inch waist and 43 inch bust. I am planning my skirt to come to just below my knees, so approx. 22 or 23 inches long. I will start the skirt shaping at about 15 inches in length. I have just over 2 inches (16 rounds) knit so far. This will not be fast. I am thinking the dress will be a year or two in the making.