When this pattern was released this summer in Danish, I fell in ❤️. Hard.

(Picture: Knitting for Olive)

I was checking their Instagram page on a daily basis to see if it had been translated into English yet and was determined to make it although it looked far more advanced than anything I had knit up to this point. Within hours of its release in English I had purchased and printed (no way I was going to risk loosing it if I lost my phone 😂) the pattern.

All. 7. Pages. Of.It!

I’m not going to lie, I was intimidated by it after the first read through especially since it included a chart. And knitting charts scare me. A lot!

I decided almost straight away that I would spare no expense and just order the wool that they recommend using: their own brand merino wool because!i had enough to think about with regards to the pattern without having to worry about finding a wool that would give me a similar gauge and drape. It did slightly throw me that the website is exclusively in danish (or was at that point) and I accidentally ended up ordering only half the amount needed (100g instead of 200g). The wool isn’t cheap around £5.50 per 50g skein and the postage is also around the £5 mark. Annoyingly the pound was at an all time low which inflated these prices even more (thanks again Brexit! 🥂🤦‍♀️ ) My initial cost was therefore around £17, excluding the pattern, which is higher than I would normally spend on a children’s garment but this dress was going to be special so never mind!

Only that I ran out of wool half way through and realised then that the skeins I had ordered were 50 and not 100g skeins. So times that cost by two. I’m not going to do it for you because that would be admitting that it cost me over £30 to knit a dress for a 3 year old! Although now it’s finished I do think I would have paid even more to buy a dress like that in a shop…. but that’s a dangerous road for me to go down!

The pattern is knit using 2.5 and 3mm circular needles top down and after you reach the neck opening all in the the round so there is absolutely NO sewing involved at all! You pick up stitches under the arm so there aren’t even the normal holes to sew up here. I loved that – a true knit only project.

And those seven pages of instructions? Turns out they talk you through everything in such detail that it’s actually a pretty easy dress to make! Once I started knitting even the chart was actually very straight forward to grasp.

The stitches needed were:

1. Knit
2. Purl
3. Increase
4. Decrease
5. Bobbles

The raglan increases are carefully explained so even if you’ve not knit raglan sleeves before you could tackle this.

The bodice part (including the bobbles) actually knit up very quickly. As did the sleeves. The skirt took an age! Partly because I stopped as I ran out of wool and to make Christmas presents and partly because it is so voluminous once you are done with all the increases that you have almost 400 stitches on your needles so each round takes a while to complete. With 3mm needles that meant there were nights where I would only advance 1 cm or so in length!

I made two slight modifications: I knit instead of purled the sleeves because I prefer knitting to purling and also because I prefer what it looks like. I also seamed the hem (yes after being so happy about not having to sew I inflicted sewing a 400 stitch hem upon myself 🙄) because it kept rolling up and I was worried that even after blocking it would do this and it would annoy me.

Everything else I knit exactly as stated in the pattern. By the time I finished the dress my daughter was 3 but I had knit the size 2. She is a normal size for her age – around 96cm tall I think (she won’t let me measure her) and the age two fits her perfectly.

I’ve already washed the wool twice- once for blocking and once because we’re potty training and, well you can guess – both times in the washing machine on a hand wash cycle and the wool took it all in its stride which is a BIG plus in my books. Despite the price I would therefore order it again to make special items as I love the muted colours they have and the quality really is outstanding. Also if you avoid having to pay the postage twice and don’t need more than 200g it’s not really that unreasonably priced considering the quality.

See how I’ve talked myself out of my consumer guilt 😂💪

So, to round up, I LOVED everything about this make, would highly recommend it and will at some point make it again!!!

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