Saturday, July 28, 2012

From pattern - to shop model - to real life model!

Patterns, patterns, patterns. There are a million of them! Some of them have great pictures - so you know what your finished item will look like. (And some don't!) 

Minnowknits patterns have always been popular with our customers. The designs are cute and work really well for babies and toddlers. And they've always have good photos, which is helpful!

We love their little dress patterns for girls. Back in 1999, when I was expecting my twin daughters,  I knit two of the Minnowknits Brittany Jumpers for Helen and Sophie. They were adorable! In 2002 when I opened the shop, my daughters had long outgrown the dresses, so they became shop samples. For several years the Brittany Jumper was a top selling pattern because of this.
Brittany Jumper
Over the years, we've made a number of dress samples. We've made the Sunflower Dress:
and most recently, the Daisy Dress:
Now this pattern picture is adorable! And it certainly didn't NEED a shop sample to convince people to buy/make it. But we loved it so much that I ended up making a shop sample anyway:
The pattern calls for Jil Eaton CottonTail Yarn, but I substituted Berroco Weekend. It was a quick knit and I love the flowers!

Sometimes our staff members see samples and fall in love with them too. Luckily Polly had the perfect recipient for this adorable dress... her beautiful granddaughter! So we get to share pictures of another Daisy Dress, but this one... in action:
So cute!
This picture was taken in the Boston Common (at the Frog Pond!) on Emma's 1st birthday earlier this summer. Polly says that the dress wasn't on for very long since Emma was not quite walking at the time, and crawling in a dress is pretty much impossible! 
Polly's tips: She tacked down the petals of the daisies all the way around from the inside of the dress. This way, little hands are not tempted to try to pull off the flowers. GREAT idea!

She also used Berroco Weekend, like I did, and loved the way it came out. It's very soft and washes beautifully.

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