How to Knit a Sweater Dress

Not a first-time project, a knitted dress can take you to the frontier of fashion

Knitting a dress is not as daunting or impossible as it looks. If you know how to knit, you're half way there. If you know how to knit on circular needles, you are ahead of the game. All you have to do is knit a basic tube and two conic sections for the sleeves and connect the three parts. This article will present the basics of making a knitted dress.

Things You'll Need

• Worsted weight yarn
• One set of 36 inches size 8 circular knitting needles
• Two sets of 8 inch size 8 circular knitting needles
• One set of 36 inch size 6 circular knitting needles
• Two sets of 8 inch size 6 circular knitting needles
• Scissors
• Yarn needle with a blunt tip

Instructions

Basic formula for a knitted dress

1. 

   Knit a gauge swatch four inches square using the larger needles and your yarn. Count how many stitches are in an inch. Multiply this by your hip measurement, allowing a little extra for ease. This is your key number of stitches. Write this number down. We'll use 200 stitches as an example.

2. Cast on this number of stitches on the small long circular needles, knit one row, and then join for circular knitting. Knit one inch in garter or seed stitch. Change to the larger long circular needles and continue knitting around until your dress is as long as you want it to be, measuring from your underarm to the place where you cast on. Set this aside for now.

3. Take the short set of smaller needles and cast on 40 stitches, which is 20 percent of your key number of stitches. This is your first sleeve. Knit around in the same stitch you used for the bottom of your dress for about two inches. Change to the larger short circular needles, knit 1 ½ inches, and then increase two stitches at the inside of the sleeve. Continue doing this until you reach your underarm. Lay this sleeve aside and then knit another one to match, using the other set of short circular needles. You'll have about 28 percent of your key number of stitches at the underarm portion of your sleeves, about 56 stitches from our example.

4. Now calculate eight percent of your key number of stitches. This should be 16 for our example. Slip this number of stitches from each sleeve needle at the underarm on to a piece of scrap cotton yarn. Do the same thing at each side of the tube you knitted for the main part of the dress you first knitted.

5. Now you're ready to connect the main tube with the two open-ended cone shapes, the sleeves you knitted (you didn't realize what you were knitting, did you?) Begin knitting again with the longer circular needle until you're halfway around, leaving out those 16 stitches on the scrap yarn. Then knit the sleeve stitches from one of the shorter circular needles, knit the other half of the body part of the dress, and then knit the stitches from the other shorter needle. The body and sleeves are now united. The hard part is over.

6. Knit around on all stitches for about three or four inches, then start decreasing one stitch on either side of your shoulder "seam" until you reach 40 percent of your key number of stitches, or about 80 stitches. Finish off with an inch of garter or seed stitch to match the dress's hem. Graft the underarm seams together using kitchener stitch. You're done. No seams to sew up.

Tips & Warnings

• Consult yarn-company websites for easy-to-knit dress patterns: berroco.com garnstudio.com knitty.com These are only a few of the most popular sites offering fashionable knitted dress patterns that you can actually wear in public.

Resources

• DROPS free knitting patterns
• Circular knitting techniques
• Easy dress patterns