The pattern, by Carrie Bostick Hoge, can be found here. I found it on one of my lengthy and meandering perusals of Ravelry, aka the biggest timesuck of all time for inter-knitters.
When I saw this pattern I instantly fell in love with it, but noticed that the projects in the gallery really didn't look like nighties at all. Following the pattern closely creates a lovely garment that's more like a camisole. I vowed to make mine long enough to cover my butt.
I received a big bunch of Classic Elite Premiere from my grandmother and have tried several projects with it, but they've all involved some element of disaster. The yarn is so lovely and soft, it's a double knit 8 ply yarn that is cotton/tencel. I typically don't like knitting with cotton but was determined to make something out of this.
At first I tried knitting the adorable Unmentionables from Knitty. I got gauge and went happily on my way, until I got to the part of the pattern where you were supposed to graft the crotch stitches together. I have a bad habit of knitting furiously and refusing to try on what I'm making until I've invested so much time into something it feels like it's part of me. Moral of the story: I should have tried them on sooner. When I did, they were GIANT. I could probably have fit two of me into them. This is a picture I took of them before I frogged the entire garment. It's hard to post this... makes me want to cry.
Hmph. I'll try to hold back the tears.
But I digress!
Ah, the Nightie. Once I went down to a size two needle, I got gauge. I cast on for the smallest size and got to about where the waist would be before I tried it on. Well, the border fit nicely around my hips, but it became apparent that other than that it resembled a (lovely and soft) orange potato sack. There's either not enough shaping in the pattern or this yarn is horribly saggy, or maybe a combination of both.
I ripped back to the border, figuring it might save a bit of my sanity to not start completely over. Once I started in on the main body I began the waist decreases as they are listed in the pattern, decreasing four stitches every other row.
At some point (I must remember to take better notes!) I switched to decreasing 4 stitches every fifth row. I stopped my decreases once there were only five stitches left between each fake side seam and the lace pattern. I tried it on several times during this process. Finally it looked good! The lace detail was pretty.
Once I got to the bust, I did one round where I increased 4 stitches to offset the drastic waist shaping. It's a bit of a blur how I did the bind offs. As you can see from my finished picture, the straps ended up being much farther apart then on the original pattern due to the size difference. However, I like it that way. I'd never done I-cord before and it was fun. Try it!
It didn't quite look finished so I did three rounds of crochet around the top. Finished! I will try to get some pictures soon of the rest of the nightie. It didn't turn out quite like I expected, but I adore it nonetheless.
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