Crochet Chevron Jumper or Dress

So in 17 years of crochet I've made pretty much nothing but blankets, baby dresses and scarves. Why? I just figured it was beyond my abilities. Making baby blankies and dresses was quick and easy. I could work them all up as one piece and needed to do very little shaping or use diagrams. I also felt that the crochet clothing I saw for older children and adults was pretty darn ugly, but maybe I just found patterns in all the wrong places. Anyhow, I recently picked up crocheting again after about a years break when I decided to participate in a collaborative family quilt project. And for some reason I felt for the first time that maybe assembling smaller parts and creating a larger whole wouldn't be as difficult as I had previously assumed. So after my quilt squares were complete I decided on a small project: a dress for my daughter. I figured that would be a good starting point, as I've made simple baby dresses before, but it would also be a more of a challenge as she is 5 and I haven't made clothing beyond infant wear. So I went scouring the internet for a pattern which I both liked and felt I could follow. How times have changed! I found a wealth of gorgeous crochet inspiration, via pinterest and google. It definitely took some time to search but in the end I never did find the perfect pattern. Instead I decided to take some inspiration and modify it a bit. I found a tutorial for this ripple dress on Pinterest and used the ripple instructions she linked to for the skirt part, modifying colors and pattern. Then after that I kind of winged it and it got a little tricky.

I crocheted the mid section with single crochet and did some decreases for shaping but I did them wrong. I realized this after I had already attached the granny square bodice and put it on my daughter. The mid section had some odd bulges in it. So the process of disassembling and re-doing began.

The bodice was originally made up of 4 smaller granny squares in just two colors, pink and gray, but they weren't my favorite so when I had to disassemble the dress that gave me the excuse to crochet some new ones in all three colors. I crocheted a 2 chain strip the same height as the grannies, placed one on each side of the center granny and whip stitched them together, then attached the other grannies. Then I crocheted the back of the bodice, stitched that to the dress and to the sides of the granny part of the bodice, (so the back of the bodice is just single crochet lines)

Then I crocheted single crochet straps and attached those to the dress. The dress is certainly not perfect. There is still a tiny bit of rumpling in the mid section. I unraveled the mid section 3 times to try to fix it but maybe it just can't be remedied because of the zig zag pattern or simply the height of the mid section? I don't know, but it's not bad enough I'm going to unravel the work again. I'm done! It was a great learning experience in shaping, assembly and weaving in all the ends. I know I still have a long way to go but I guess practice will help that out so I'm trying to decide on my next project now.