Easter: The Knitting

Easter: The Knitting
My Easter isn't complete without a little knitting.  Here: a rabbit from Debbie Bliss' Toy Knits.
My Easter isn’t complete without a little knitting. Here: a rabbit from Debbie Bliss’ Toy Knits made from a remnant of beige yarn.

Making Easter outfits for my children has been one of my traditions in the last few years.

This year, my Easter outfits were inspired by a treasure trove of yarn samples. I ordered some wonderful hand-dyed yarn from Cheryl Potter this past fall during a terrific sale she was holding and was surprised to find that I was one of the lucky recipients of a free goodie bag for the first 200 orders.

Woohoo!  This was quite the goodie bag!
Woohoo! This was quite the goodie bag!
The exploded bag, full of wonderful yarns, buttons, patterns, stitch holders and crochet hooks and even a free sweater in my size!  I was blown away.  Cheryl Potter has set a new standard for goodie bags.
The exploded bag, full of wonderful yarns, buttons, patterns, stitch holders and crochet hooks and even a free sweater in my size! I was blown away. Cheryl Potter has set a new standard for goodie bags.
The free sweater!  A perfect fit!
The free sweater! A perfect fit!

So, I had all of this really cool yarn. Most of it was much nicer than the stuff I usually knit with. But the only problem was that I had just a random ball here and there to work with. Most knitting patterns need at least 4-5 balls of yarn in the same color. What to do?

Well, I decided that this yarn was just too awesome not to knit with so I decided for the girls that I would make a sort of tunic with knitted accents. Wherever the knitting ran out, I would sew the rest with scraps from my fabric stash.

Scooters

My girls are infatuated with scooter skirts (skirts with shorts attached) lately. They love to wear them alone or with leggings underneath. They add a fun, feminine touch to just about any outfit.

I considered making my own scooter skirts for the Easter outfits but then I saw these for $5 and decided to take the easy route and just buy this part of the outfit. I wanted pink for both but had to settle for one bright peach and one pink in the sizes that were available.

Nothing better than a scooter skirt on sale!
Nothing better than a scooter skirt on sale!

Floral and Lace

The first yarn to inspire me was the purple cotton yarn. It screamed Easter. I looked around for a pattern to work with and I found a free pattern on the Rowan Yarns website from Zoe Mellor that was just perfect.

Of course, I didn’t have enough to make the entire sweater but all I really wanted was the flower motif in the center.

The knitted flower detail.
The knitted flower detail.
For the finished tunic, I created an apron-style tunic, added some lace accents and a tulle hem (inspired by the H&M catalog).  I loved how feminine it came out.
For the finished tunic, I created an apron-style tunic, added some lace accents and a tulle hem (inspired by the H&M catalog). I loved how feminine it came out.
The finished look.
The finished look.
The back full of gathered lace and tied at the neck.
The back full of gathered lace and tied at the neck.

Ruffles

Working with the peach color was a bit trickier than I was expecting. I decided on the yellow cotton yarn to pair with it and was pleased to discover that the yarn had flecks of orange, purple and green in it that worked quite well with the peach.

Generally I don’t do much patterning with variegated color yarns because it doesn’t show up very well. I wasn’t sure quite what to do with this yarn until I came across this pattern.

I loved the ruffle detail and thought I had just enough yarn to make the ruffle top. I had to alter the pattern slightly for my purposes. I changed how much it ruffled and added rows of crochet on the backside to keep the yarn edges from curling the wrong way. I also made the straps cross for more stability.

The finished ruffle dress with white body, gold sequin hem and gold satin accent.
The finished ruffle dress with white body, gold sequin hem and gold satin accent.

This outfit came out a little quirky/Coachella style unintentionally but I just decided to go with it. When paired with bohemian braids, it just seemed to work.

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The tied-back braids pulled this look together.
The tied-back braids pulled this look together.

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The Vest

I was ready to call it all done at this point when it suddenly dawned on me that I have another child to think about . . . my son!

I am so used to making frilly creations for my daughters that I wasn’t sure where to even start for my son. I only had two choices from the yarn stash that weren’t pink: gray with green flecks and beige. I also didn’t think it would work to make him a combination knitted and sewn outfit like the girls.

It took a lot of creative thinking but eventually I stumbled across this pattern

I matched up the gray and green yarn with a few other balls of remnant yarn from my grandmother’s collection: a green cotton, navy wool and another ball of similarly shaded gray yarn. I had to alter the pattern to fit my random yarns and to resize it for a toddler. Knitting like this requires a leap of faith. I didn’t know exactly how far I was going to get with the yarn I had and had to make several impropmtu adjustments to the pattern as I went. Amazingly, it all seemed to work!

The bottom ribbing and the extent of the gray-green yarn.
The bottom ribbing and the extent of the gray-green yarn.
The coordinating gray yarn I found from my grandmother's collection.  It wasn't an exact match but in most lights it was close enough.  I though the effect was kind of like the way the stone on the Washington Monument doesn't match exactly but it coordinates.
The coordinating gray yarn I found from my grandmother’s collection. It wasn’t an exact match but in most lights it was close enough. I though the effect was kind of like the way the stone on the Washington Monument doesn’t match exactly but it coordinates.
The finished vest.
The finished vest.

Ideally, I would have made the vest a few inches longer but I just didn’t have enough yarn.

The finished vest on my son.
The finished vest on my son.

My husband I thought that the vest was perfectly cute on my son. It took some convincing to get my son to put the vest on for pictures but after he had it on for a while he stopped tugging at it to get it off. Next year with a little more planning I hope to make him another that fits better.

So, now we were all dressed up with noplace to go . . . except we did have someplace to go . . . and I’ll tell you about it in the next post!