CROCHET BIRTHDAY DRESS!!!

Do yall know that meme where the girl walks in the room and she’s like “Heyyyyy… How yall doin??” and it’s a really awkward silence and no one says anything back… That’s how I feel writing this blog post… LOL I knowwww it’s been a long time since I wrote a blog post and I’ve seriously missed it. I think I mentioned in the last post that I lost my sewjo for a REALLLY long time and as a result I started crocheting. It started with me crocheting an ear warmer and kind of just took off from there. So far I’ve made 3 swimsuits, a sarong, a coverup, 2 dresses, and I’m working on a sweater. Obsessed much… I know. This doesn’t mean I will never sew again, Im just exploring yarn right now. LOL

Anyway, as promised, this post is about my birthday dress. If you don’t know I have been making my birthday outfits for about 6 years now. This year I decided to go completely out of my comfort zone and try to crochet a dress instead of sewing something like I usually do. I did mention this was going to be a very detailed post so I’m going to start with the inspiration pic. This dress was inspired by @n00rvana on IG. I saw this dress on her page and fell in love with it! She is like a master “crocheter” I don’t know if that’s the proper term, but her work is amazing. You should definitely check her out page for some crochet inspiration.

Since I’ve crocheted a few projects, I felt semi confident going into this. This project is (kind of) beginner friendly. Because its literally just chains and single crochet its pretty easy, but I recommend you have a little bit of crochet experience before starting. This dress is worked from the bottom up, in rounds, until you reach the bust part, then it’s done in rows. I used a size 3.5 hook purchased from Amazon.

YARN– I knew I didn’t want an acrylic yarn because I thought it would be heavy and uncomfortable against my skin. I didn’t want cotton because that doesn’t really drape or have any stretch. Since I’m not that experienced, I was afraid to order yarn online. Luckily there is a cute little yarn shop in Atlanta called Needle Nook. I went there and the sweet ladies who work there helped me out. In the end I went with a DK weight yarn that is a cotton/rayon blend. It worked and the dress turned out great, but it was definitely a hassle to work with. If I made this dress again, I would have to find another yarn option. I was unaware that yarn sold in hanks had to be wound into balls before you can use it. There is a machine/apparatus you can use to speed up the process, but I didn’t want to add more gadgets to my home.

So before even starting the dress, I had to roll all 6 of these hanks into balls, by hand.  Super annoying. The next annoying part about this project was the fact that I had to use 2 strands of yarn at a time, so I had to crochet with one ball on my left and one on my right. I had to stop to untangle yarn A LOT and that was super annoying… If I could have used a cotton/rayon blend yarn that is slightly thicker than DK weight, that would have been ideal for this project. The rayon does make the yarn a bit softer and have a bit of drape, but the winding and using 2 balls of yarn really made this project take a long time.

PATTERNS– If you know how to read crochet patterns then you can just use this pattern I found on Etsy and turn it into a maxi dress. That was my plan, however I don’t understand crochet patterns just yet. So luckily I found this tutorial on Youtube. That tutorial is super helpful if you don’t know how to read crochet patterns.

*UPDATE* Unfortunately the written crochet pattern is now sold out on Etsy, but the tutorial is still up on Youtube!

MISTAKES– Although you can’t tell from the pics this dress has one MAJOR flaw. Lol I didnt make the bottom wide enough, so unless I hold the dress up above my knees, I can only take small steps in it.. LMAOOO

Now, I knew that I wouldn’t really be able to walk in it when I was done, but the only way to fix anything in crochet is to take it out and do it all over again and I wasn’t willing to do that. So, I finessed it the night of my birthday, but if you are making a maxi length dress and you are following the tutorial, DO NOT start with 45 chains… lol If you are my size I would start with at least 60-70 chains in each section to have the bottom of the dress be wide enough to walk in and put on! Lol Which brings me to the other flaw this dress has… Since I didn’t make the bottom wide enough it’s hard to take on and off.

Lastly, you will have to count the ENTIRE time you are making this dress. Each section in the round needs to be even so for example if you are doing 60 chains per section you are basically counting to 60 over and over and over again. I tried to watch something interesting while making this and kept losing my place while counting or just forgetting to count and that was also annoying! LOL!

Since this dress is worked in the round, from the bottom up, it isn’t a complete fail. I plan to just turn it into a mini dress. I’m going to start taking it out from the bottom and stop at my desired length. Then it will be a mini dress that should fit perfect and I will be able to walk in! I do feel like at the point I turn it into a mini-dress, its more of a swimsuit cover up than an actual dress, but at least it will still be wearable.

So, overall this dress was a great challenge and a pain in my ass. Lol My number one tip if you want to learn how to crochet or make this dress is to be patient and keep checking the fit!!  

Leave your thoughts, comments, or questions about this dress below!