On or around September 18 of this year, I discovered this dress:
I had already been experiencing granny-square-dress lust after seeing Cate Blanchett in this now famous/infamous photo:
So I added the Go-go Granny Dress to my queue at Ravelry, and then made the rounds of the bookstores near my house until I found a copy of Knitting It Old School, the book which contains the pattern for Ms. Roudier’s delightful dress.
As is my wont, I was unable to follows the directions exactly. To start, I used my trusty Red Heart Super Saver acrylic yarn instead of the lighter weight cotton that was called for in the pattern. This resulted in two differences that I am aware of.
The first, and most immediately noticeable difference is that the granny squares of my dress are four rounds each rather than the five-round granny squares pictured in the book.
The second difference I discovered yesterday when I finally put the dress on: it is a bit like wearing a blanket. Given that the temperature where I live topped out somewhere in the mid-thirties today, this is, at the moment, a good thing.
Without further ado, here is the finished garment:
But I wanted to know, how does one wear a go-go granny dress? To that end, I consulted with a Hollywood stylist and life style blogger, Gigi Berry, to get some tips.
The givens were the dress and some orange rainboots I had gotten to go with it.
To pull it all together, Gigi recommended white tights, a white turtleneck, dangling earrings, chunky bracelets, a bit of an updo, and a hair band.
I did my best to follow her advice, and with a pair of what would now be called vintage earrings from my mother, a Bumpit, the help of a video at Youtube that showed how to use the Bumpit, and a hair band I made while my son was at choir practice last night, I put together this ensemble:
No doubt I will give this pattern another try in a lighter weight yarn that will give it a bit more drape so that I have something to wear in the seasons that are not winter, but in the meantime, I will enjoy the warmth of my new go-go granny dress:
