Butterfly Dress or Vest by Jennie Atkinson

Craft: Knitting

Butterfly dress is a delicate, lacy slip dress knitted in a fine mohair yarn on relatively large (UK 5mm/US 8) needles. The lace stitch of the body is a simple 8-row repeat, and the frill is made up of 2 layers of edging knitted lengthways. The body is decorated with small glass beads, threaded onto the yarn before knitting, and placed randomly over the dress. The pattern contains both written instructions and charts for the lace stitch and bead placement.

The pattern also contains instructions for the vest version, which is shorter and has just one frill.

Both garments are made by knitting the frill first, then picking up stitches from along its edge to start the body. The pattern also contains images of the stitch details.

For copyright reasons the photos of the finished garment from the Rowan publications are not included, but the images posted by knitters give an accurate representation of the finished garments.

Also requires 3 mm round glass beads, approximately 500 each of copper (Rowan no. 01009) and pewter (Rowan no. 01006) for the dress, and 500 beads for the vest.

Yarn

Pattern calls for 3-4 balls of Kidsilk Haze in main colour (shown in Majestic 589) and 1 ball in contrasting colour (shown in Smoke 605) for the dress, and 2-3 balls of Kidsilk Haze (shown in Pearl 590) for the vest.

Gauge

17 stitches and 24 rows = 4 inches in lace pattern using 5 mm needles

Needle size

US 3 - 3.25 mm

US 7 - 4.5 mm

US 8 - 5.0 mm

Also requires 3 mm round glass beads, approximately 500 each of copper and pewter for the dress, and 500 beads for the vest.

Yardage

916 - 1145 yards (838 - 1047 m)

Sizes available

XS - XL

To fit bust size 32”/81 cm, 34”/86 cm, 36”/91 cm, 38”/97 cm and 40”/102 cm. Designer notes that the lace will stretch to fit.