Remix Friday: Bloomsbury Dress

Every once in a while we need a bit of glamor in our day. Sometimes glamor means adding glitter to your eyelids, sometimes glamor means a sassy strut while walking down the street, and sometimes glamor means remixing your crochet project in a new and fabulous way. Today I'm going to share a glamorous twist on an already wonderful pattern. Aleksandra made her project pop with amazing bell sleeves and other alterations. C'mon and vogue!

The Crocheter

Hi! I’m Aleksandra, I work as a software developer by day and a rabid crocheter(and sometimes knitter) at night. I live in the greater Chicago area with my two cats, Heath and Freya. I started crocheting a few years ago when I was working as a traveling consultant for a tech company. I was literally in and out of airports every week and I needed some sort of creative pursuit that I could easily travel with, so I ended up choosing to crochet and I’ve been loving it ever since.

The Original Pattern
Bloomsbury Top by Tammy Hildebrand

The Story
I seek a lot of inspiration from Art Nouveau, Baroque, and Medieval styles and I’m especially fond of the large flared sleeves worn in the middle ages. I searched for a pattern that I thought I could modify to suit the design I had in mind and I ended up choosing the Bloomsbury Top. 

The Remix
I made the Bloomsbury Top longer by adding an extra round of motifs and I used a basic trellis stitch for the sleeves. I used the edging for the collar on the arm holes also to give a sturdy base for the sleeves (they are very heavy). I started with a round of 15 5-chain spaces and then I made 5-ch space increases (evenly spaced out) on the 2nd round of the sleeves, and then did the same increases on every 4th round until I had completed 5 rounds with increases. After that I just continued the trellis stitch in the round until I had the length desired. 

Crochet is... Output for creativity

Look at that picture. Just look at it! So. Much. Glamor. Thanks for sharing your totally gorgeous dress with us, Aleksandra!

Remix Friday: Walking After Midnight Dress

Some folks are so creatively amazing that it boggles the mind. It seems like they have a special gift for looking at the world and seeing latent possibilities everywhere. Have you ever met a person like that? Today's Remix was hooked up by a woman whose creativity shines so brightly that it has recently been praised by ABC, Buzzfeed, and The Huffington Post. She's a fellow Seattle-ite and I'm so happy to share more of her creativity with you today! Let's take a moment today to learn about her and look at the alterations she made to an existing pattern.

The Crocheter
My name is Chi Krneta and I am an architect by day.  The design and graphics experience I have as an architect applies beautifully to other hobbies that I enjoy such as photography, apparel design, jewelry design, and crocheting.  I first learned how to crochet from my grandmother when I was 7 but haven't made much until the past few years.  I'm usually thinking of ways to make something function better and be more beautiful just like what I do at work when designing a building.

The Original Pattern
I was browsing Ravelry and saw Doris Chan's beautiful "Walking after Midnight" crocheted skirt.  I wanted to give it a try.

The Story
The dress originally was a skirt just like the "Walking After Midnight" skirt except it didn't turn out quite as nicely as Doris Chan's skirt because I'm terrible at following directions (I actually don't know how to read written crochet directions and rely only on photographs and diagrams).  I wore it for a while as a skirt and decided it was longer than I had liked for a skirt so I turned it into a dress by adding a top to it.

The Remix
I did not sew a lining to the dress because I wanted to make it flexible and to be able to wear it for different occasions with different things underneath.  I took a series of photos of myself to document and diagram how the dress could be worn for each season.  I love the flexibility of lacy crocheted garments that could be mixed and layered depending on weather and occasion.

Crochet is... beautiful, innovative, versatile

I use my Flickr album to document my design endeavors.

So pretty. How cool that she even styled the finished object! Check out her other projects too, they're amazing of course. Thank you so much for joining us today, Chi. Have a great weekend everyone!