A Passion for Plum

Usually I can remember how I came up with the idea for a project: whether I had a genuine need for the item, or I had supplies on hand I wanted to use up, or I came across a pattern I loved. This time I can't remember. Did I come across the pattern I loved for this one first, or did I decide I wanted to use up some yarn I had on hand before I found the pattern, or did I initially decide I needed a cotton summer dress in plum? In this case, it could have been any of the three. 

However it came about, I definitely wanted to use the design you see photographed above, which is the Simply Striped design by Arenda Holladay, to make myself a striped cotton dress. The shaping is flattering and classic and the dress is one that could be worn in a number of different settings. The only thing I didn't like about it were the three-quarter length sleeves, as that's an unflattering sleeve length on me, but that was easily remedied.

As to the yarn, I had the contrast colours on hand. In 2017, I knitted a green and cream cotton shawl for myself that I never once wore (I am simply not a shawl person, and there's no use my pretending otherwise), and sometime in 2021 I decided I would resign myself to inevitable and take it apart and use the good quality cotton yarns that had been used to make it to make something that I would use. I really liked the idea of a plum dress with cream and green stripes. It took me about a year and a half after that to find the right yarn for the main colour. 

I've become a devotee of plum in recent years. To be clear, I should probably begin by describing what I mean by plum, because what I call plum is probably more commonly described as magenta. It's a shade that's neither purple nor pink but occupies its own territory between the two. Some years ago I had a cognac brown leather Fossil wallet with a plum-coloured lining. While initially I wasn't thrilled with the lining colour of the wallet, I was seeing it every single time I opened my wallet, and it began to grow on me. I don't usually wear purple because it's a cool colour and it doesn't suit me, but plum is a warm shade that would work on me and with the autumn colours in my wardrobe. I began to think I would like to have some items of that colour in my wardrobe, and to keep an eye out for it when shopping. It's not often that I find anything in plum, because it isn't a common shade. Usually the things I find are too pink or too purple. It didn't help that my plum-lined Fossil wallet got stolen out of my backpack by some shithead one day when I was shopping in Value Village in March 2019 -- it had been so helpful to have a colour sample of that shade in my bag to whip out and show sales associates when necessary. 

But, even minus the wallet, and after a number of years of being on the alert for it, I have found a few things in plum. I have a plum windbreaker/rain jacket I lavishly bought new and full price from L.L. Bean (it's so seldom that I make any regular retail clothing purchases that it still makes me a little breathless to think about my audacious purchase of that jacket). I have a plum t-shirt I paid six or seven dollars for at a Banana Republic outlet. I have a plum handbag (shown above), a ribbed cotton v-neck plum sweater, and a zippered Adidas jacket all bought secondhand from Value Village. And, of course, I made some things. I knitted myself a sweater that was mostly plum, and a plum hat and scarf. I have a plum jersey beach dress I made for myself, and some cute undies made with plum jersey and cream lace, as well as a printed velvet skirt I made for myself with some plum in the pattern. I have more of that velvet left, and intend to make myself a few more things with it. I also have some plum jersey on hand with which I plan to make leggings (they'll go with the Adidas jacket), and some plum silk mohair yarn that I intend to use to knit myself a pullover (to go with the velvet skirt). And I still want a wool dress in plum, but I probably won't acquire too many more items in that colour. It is a shade that one could easily overdo.   

Anyway, this is to say it wasn't easy to find some yarn for this project. But eventually I found something that would work, and purchased 500 grams of Sirdar Snuggly Replay DK in Currant Fun for this project. It was a slightly lighter shade than I really wanted, but I liked it well enough, and it went with the green and cream yarns I had set aside for the contrast yarns. Which, for the record, were 100 grams of Cascade Yarns Ultra Pima in Sage, and 100 grams of Berroco Modern Cotton DK in Sandy Point.     

  

The finished dress. As mentioned above, I shortened the sleeves, and I also moved the waist shaping down a bit so it would sit at my waistline. I also changed the stripe pattern so that it involved more and narrower stripes. I ran short of the cream yarn, scoured the yarn stores of Toronto for more, and when none of them had any skeins of that yarn in that shade, ultimately had to order another skein from The Creative Knitter in Fort Erie, Ontario. (The shipping cost was more than the price of the yarn, sigh). When I finished the fourth stripe of green with just 15 grams of that yarn left and that wasn't going to be enough to knit a fifth, I finished off my stripe pattern with two stripes of cream and a coordinating second stripe of cream on each of the sleeves. I'm happy with the effect, and with the dress as a whole. Stripe patterns are more interesting if they're irregular in some way, and this is quite a flattering as well as a practical, comfortable dress for me to have in my wardrobe. 

I used just under half of the plum yarn I bought for this dress, will be returning five of the ten 50 gram skeins I bought to Romni Wools, and have just 5 grams of plum left. I used 85 grams of the green yarn. I used 100 grams of the cream stash yarn, and have 60 grams of the new skein left. So, that's 185 grams of stash yarn used, and 65 grams of new yarn left to tuck away in my yarn stash boxes, which is a net stash decrease of -120 grams.