Debbie Bliss Tunic Dress-A WIP

You may recall that I bought a whole bagful of delicious Merino wool on my recent trip to The Netherlands.

Yummy!

 

I have been excited about getting started on a Debbie Bliss Aran Tunic Dress pattern that I bought online. In the 1980’s I was the queen of cable and bobbles and I had a number of cardigans and jumpers to prove the fact. Unfortunately or perhaps thankfully, no photographic evidence remains. So although more recently I have knitted some quite straightforward garments (perhaps with the exception of the green flower cardigan), I didn’t feel that this Tunic would be too much of a challenge. How wrong can you be?

The pattern is made up of five different blocks over twenty rows, and as I had downloaded the pattern to my iPad it was brain boggling flicking from one page to the next to knit just one row.

Forget basic ribbing, this top starts of with a bang and I undid the rows at least three times!

Forget ribbing this is how the Debbie Bliss Aran Tunic Dress begins.

 

Then came the body of the Tunic. This was not for the faint hearted. There were two sections on the pattern that I just couldn’t get on with. I knew from looking at the Tunic that I had done one of the patterns incorrectly and that just irritated me. So I decided that I needed to change them. Bring out the old faithful.

Old faithful.

 

I’ve used this book before to change a pattern and I found a cable block which was the same number of stitches and seemed a whole lot easier. Off I went again with the amended pattern. I also photocopied the pattern and found that better (sometimes technology loses). I knitted about twelve rows and then realized I had omitted two cables. Ahhh! I was ready to throw in the towel!

But not quite. I undid the Tunic down to the ribbing equivalent made myself a cup of tea and started again.

Work in progress.

At last it’s going quite well and I have now done twenty two rows. I am almost at the stage where I don’t need the pattern but not quite yet. It takes ninety rows to make the back so I’m sure I’ll know it by then!

Rima

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