Doodles in Crochet

A good 6 months or so ago, I came across this picture of an AWESOME dress:

Using JUST this pic, I was able to pretty much recreate the pattern (which is rare for me since most patterns are no where NEAR this clear and easy to see and recreate). As I have been crocheting this, I've apparently somehow NOT taken out as many stitches as I've added (while creating the chevrons, stitches are added and subtracted so that the base amount of stitches doesn't really change), therefore MY dress has belled out rather than "hug" my body as I wanted it too. However, it still looks pretty good on me.

Here's a progress pic that shows that I am just NOW getting to the point where I will add a few blocks to make the skirt - after many months of working on this on and off, whew! lol.

As you can plainly see, the original dress incorporates shaping to make it hug the curves of a much smaller body, so it didn't need as many pattern row repeats as mine does. Also, I obviously didn't have the original yarn, and because the white/brown/blue is variegated (which means changes color as you use the yarn, usually on a broad spectrum so that it "self stripes"), it's actually somewhat hard to see just how many pattern repeats there are in the original, but I was able to narrow a single pattern repeat down to 8 rows. In my version, you can see that a little better. There's 2 rows of the cream color, 2 rows of the teal color, and 4 rows of the blue.

Here's a slightly different pic that looks a little better IMO :-)

Keep in mind that this flat picture of the top doesn't show how well it accommodates my very 3 dimensional body, lol! Also, when I am finished with it - AKA I run out of yarn and literally CAN'T go any further, lol - I will post a pic of it on my body. It looks weird in these pics, but it really does look good on me in person :-D

One last note, as far as I can tell, the original dress was made in the same size thread as I am using, so the proportions of the dress seem to suggest that it was actually made in miniature to fit a rather tiny mannequin for show purposes. I must admit that making tiny clothes SERIOUSLY appeals to me, lmao!

Okay, moving on! In addition to this project, I have also wanted to practice my beading technique BUT I didn't really have a project to make. SO, I decided to simply doodle, lol! Here's a pic of my doodle, but now that I have "mastered" the bead technique, I am going to pull this apart and remake it into a beaded purse or something that I can carry with me and show off proudly, lol!

I decided to tilt the piece so that a slightly different perspective could be seen :-)

Even though this is just a doodle, part of me thinks that if made right, this could have made a pretty kick ass sleeve cuff on an old-timey, renaissance style dress. Definitely something to keep in mind :-)