My Life Rivulets

I discovered I'd missed this Darski pattern last year and wanted to make sure I included it again in this year's donation.

I struggled a bit with yarn thickness this year. I made this with left over Red Heart yellow yarn last year and had no issue. I started with Red Heart this year and the yarn wasn't heavy enough to hold the pattern. I tried a different color thinking I might have grabbed Joann's Big Twist which generally is lighter but having grabbed a skein right from the labeled package I was sure it was Red Heart I was struggling with and was some what confused as I had no problem the prior year.

Then I pulled an old Caron Pounder out of my stash and it was thicker than my current stash of Red Heart. No idea why but it was holding the format of the dress so while my intention wasn't to go with dark green for the dress, it was the only shade of Pounder I could quickly lay my hands on for the experiment. The white is left over Mary Maxim yarn from a baby afghan I've been slowly using up on projects like this one.

One thing I've started doing for myself is documenting more details of how I adapted patterns to get the outcomes on my blog enteries because I'm finding I come back to these and there is more room to document here than on my pattern sheets sometimes. I also find I take more time to clarify for myself here than I do on my quick pattern notes.

Notes:

I went with a Caron Pounder for thickness this year. I'll experiment further to see if I my issue with Red Heart can be adjusted. When I run out of the Mary Maxim yarn for trim I think I can substitute Bernat's Big Baby Sport Yarn which I always keep here for the baby doll projects.

I used the suggested I hook for everthing but the top trim. I used a g hook for the trim on the top as it tended to poof with the larger hook and the lighter yarn. I might use a g hook for the trim on the bottom next time as well as it got a bit bulky with the I hook.

Don't increase beyond four dc between the post stitches as the skirt gets to be huge. The last row is all dc before adding trim. I missed this and the trim sits better from dc row.

The bottom trim rows need to adjust for reduced number of increases.

After finishing the dress directions I finished the back and top of the dress with the primary color yarn before adding the white trim. This made for a cleaner back and made adding the trim easier. It also makes the arm holes look cleaner when completed.

Be careful not to split yarn changing from chains to dc for arm holes. The white yarn is soft but it needs to stay strong for the arm holes.

I need to do a V stitch in the end stitch of each end for each row of the shawl, not in the chain stitch. I struggled with this last year and caught the direction this year.

Last year I didn't make shoes for this outfit as I was crushed for time. These were made with an out of print pattern from Sweet Silver Creations.