A Quick FO.

I realized yesterday I hadn't completed anything for nearly two weeks now. The dress reconstruction I was working on is giving me fits, so it's joined the UFO pile for now. I was feeling the need to accomplish something, though, so I started digging through my pattern stash in search of something I could make in a day or less. And this is what I came up with:
Nice, huh? It is a dress from this pattern: Baby Girl Sleeper Set. It's very popular at the 'Ville, but I've been burned so many times by online patterns that are supposed to be for babies but might fit a doll, in reality. Being that the pattern contains neither gauge info nor finished measurements, I was leery, to say the least.

Of course, my trepidation was met with utter disbelief by my fellow villagers. That I could possibly want to know something would fit before I put in the effort to make it! Or, perhaps, it was my belief that something on the internet wouldn't be perfect. Now, mind you, I do not doubt that Ms Goss's dress, made with sport weight yarn and an I hook, fit whatever baby she tried it on. However, I know myself. I tend to have a pretty tight tension. I generally have to bump myself up a hook size with whatever published pattern I am following, in order to get the gauge right. But without a gauge, I'd have simply no way of knowing whether what I made would fit. And to be honest, just looking at it makes me doubt it would really fit a 3-month-old.

Anyway, I am not making this for a three-month-old, but for a baby girl who will be six months old this Sunday (Goodness, has it really been that long!?). So I knew already that I'd need to make some changes. So here are the ones that I made (mind you, this is fairly obviously only the "dress" part of the set to begin with, and I do not intend to make anything else): I used worsted weight yarn (Simply Soft, of course) and a J hook. I was very careful to keep my tension loose (Lily Chen is right that you crochet faster this way). I increased in my second round of off-white shells, because I wanted a fullness to the skirt. And I used a single button as a closure instead of crocheting two sets of ties.

My gauge for this project, by the way: 6 rows of shells = 4 inches, and 3 shells from end-to-end = 4 inches. It will easily fit Esther now, and *might* generously be called 6 - 9 months size. Get back to me in three months & I'll tell you if it still fits her, LOL.

Off topic comment: I weighed Esther today and she weighs 19 pounds. Considering that one criterion for turning around her carseat is that she weigh 20 pounds, that's a good size. (Yes, I know the other criterion is "AND one year of age," and no, I won't turn her around early. Don't worry.)