Milo Vest and Dress

Now that we are fully into fall and school and extra curricular activity routines are established, my busy schedule is starting to seem more manageable.  I have big plans to post all of the things I knit during the summer months!

I rarely buy patterns, but when I saw the Milo vest, I decided the $5 would be money well spent. My favourite part about this pattern is the option to do a detailed insert down the front of the vest for which the author includes at least six different cable patterns that can be used.

To date I have knit three different versions of this pattern. Although I love the pattern as a vest, before knitting the pattern as printed, I needed to fulfill my knit dress obsession and modify the pattern by making some carefully placed increases.  For my first project, I used one 140g/5oz ball of Bernat Soft Bouclé in the colour Teal Twist (100% acrylic = 100% machine washable!). Because the yarn is heavier than what the pattern calls for, I was able to knit the pattern in the smallest size (newborn) and have it result in a dress that fit my 4 year old friend Freya!

Although the dress turned out beautifully, I was disappointed that the yarn I chose obscures the detailed cable pattern that runs down the skirt portion of the dress. Here's Freya in the dress with her sister Astrid wearing one of the Impress Dresses I knit.

To try and do something that would show off the cable pattern, I knit another dress version using three colours of Phildar Castel yarn that I picked up at Value Village. The colours are "loutre", "rocaille" and "jean's" (sic) and the yarn composition is 65% acrylic, 25% wool and 10% chlorofiber.

This is my newest neighbour Amelia who received the dress as a baby gift!

When a friend was moving across the country, she found a shrug she'd knit for herself using a lovely skein of merino wool. Because she wasn't happy with how it turned out, she'd never worn it and it had gotten lost at the back of her closet. She didn't want to give it away as she loved the yarn, but she also didn't want to move clothing she was never going to wear. I offered to pull it apart and make something for her daughter. For this project, I finally knit the pattern as printed, using the heart cable pattern down the front.

After knitting the pattern three times in a row, it was time to move on.  However, now that it's been a few months, I think I could go back to this one . . .