Hello Internet friends!

As promised here's my post on the Kielo Wrap dress that everyone loved so much during #MMMay!

Story time! So the #fluffyblondemonster and I are getting married in September :D and lucky for us one of his very good friends from the choir he sings in are wedding photographers :D

Part of their photography process is to take 'lifestyle photos' (also known as engagement photos) to help get couples comfortable in front of the camera before the big day. I've written before about how hard it can be to take pictures of yourself so I really appreciated taking sometime to chat and to get to know how those beautiful wedding photos get made (spoiler, you spend a lot of time looking up your partner's nose, or at their eyebrows!)

I decided long ago to make my bridesmaids their dresses as a gift to them so I thought this photo shoot would be a great operunity to test drive the pattern :D I also feel my most confident when I'm wearing something I've made so I thought this would also be a way to get rid of any 'this is weird having people other people take our pictures, and oh there are two of them where did the other one go? Oh she's up on those rocks, wait what do I look like from that angle?' jitters.

While I was going through potential patterns with my 'bride tribe' (#trending term for bridesmaids) I knew I wanted to put them in something that would be almost effortlessly stylish while still being as comfy as sweat pants. After a few iterations of 'what about this pattern, or how about that one?' we landed on the Kielo wrap dress by named clothing. This pattern is pretty spectacular in that it has this almost 'Greek goddess' vibe with the way it drapes and creates this very full silhouette around the hips and then tapers to be very narrow around the ankles, but because of the way the way the pattern uses the waist ties you don't end up with a lot of extra fabric. It also can be made with either jersey or woven fabric, I've gone for a bamboo jersey from BlackBird Fabrics here, which makes it a very comfy and a 'food baby' forgiving dress (a girl's gotta eat!). Also, because of the way the waist ties are made, you can make this dress as close fitting, ie tied tightly, or more loose depending on your mood. I've tied it a little looser and it sits more on my hips in this photo shoot but it works equally well tighed tighter and more at my waist. I think by tying it more around my hips it makes me look a bit taller (#ShortGirlWishfulThinking) 

I'm really excited to make a few more of these for the wedding! :D I know my girls are going to rock it! I haven't decided on fabric yet for their dresses as BlackBird is out of this colourway of jersey. I don't actually know if I would make the other dresses with it as it is a tiny bit too thin, if you're not careful you can end up with underwear lines showing up. I've got about a dozen swatches coming my way in the next week or so, so I'm hoping I'll find a sutable subsitute soon!

There was one other thing that I made specifically for our photo shoot, as well as for our big day, is this big, squishy, infinitely snuggle-able Equal Night Blanket by Sylvia McFadden. Way back in February or March I spied Sylvia with this beauty before the pattern was released and I knew I wanted to make one to snuggle up in by the campfire on our wedding. (also, anyway to use the wedding budget instead of my own budget for knitting supplies is a huge win in my opinion!) I used about 2.5 cones of Custom Woolen Mills Prairie Sea Fusion to make the whole blanket and it was such a joy to knit! It was so much fun I actually knit it twice! The first time I miss read the instructions and used the wrong needle size (that's what I get for trying to start a new project after just getting over a migraine!), it was actually the #fluffyblondmonster that figured out that the blanket was looking too small and asked if I had read the instructions right. In the end it turned out perfect, and after some 'aggressive blocking', as instructed, I was very impressed with the result.

Right now the blanket is living on our couch and I've already loved having it handy when it gets chilly at night and i'm too lazy to get up and close the window! I can't wait to bring it with us to our island camp wedding and getting it all 'camp fire smelling' while sitting around a nice fire with all the people we love :D

Shout out to the #fluffyblondemonster for looking so dashing in all the pictures! Since you are usually taking pictures of me for my blog I wonder how you felt this time around ;) And before someone asks, I did intend to make him a sweater to wear, but I forgot how much bigger guys are and I didn't finish it in time....soon though!