Teeny Tunic

I have been wanting to knit a little girl's tunic for a while now. I began looking for patterns months ago. I finally settled on the Emma Tunic pattern for my newest knit project. I'm making this tunic for the daughter of my college roommate. This is not a free pattern. Whereas I prefer to find free patterns the adorable factor swayed me to go on and purchase the pattern. Thus far it has been a simple pattern to follow. I'm pretty fond of it already.

I'm using the leftover Madeline Tosh vintage from my stash to make this tunic. The butter yellow color is so cheerful that I had to find a way to use what little remained in another project. Remember it was used to make Leah's Tiny Tea Leaves. In this tunic pattern I decided to began using the yellow with the seed stitch hem. It was a good choice especially when paired with the blue. Unfortunately after knitting far too much I realized that I'm going to run out of the blue. Sigh. That's a problem because the blue and yellow pair so well together that I didn't expect I'd even run out of them both. Ha! Imagine that being short yarn. Crazy huh? Rather than ordering more blue....which would end up being a slightly different shade I decided to seek my stash for another color. I found a skein of dusty rose which compared to my other colors would blend the best with the yellow and blue. With plenty of dusty rose to help fill out the tunic length I was set to keep knitting. Except.....that when it comes to the eye the gentle pink does not pair as well with the yellow. Or maybe it does. To me it just does not please the eye enough for me to add the rose pink to the bodice portion. My choice and use of color has certainly been influenced by my artist mother who always had a fantastic eye for pleasant combinations. (Still does too!) Rather than take the easy way and add the pink where I left off with the blue I decided to make the tunic look properly balanced. That meant I needed to suck it up and rip out 25 rows of knitting. Double sigh.



Oh how I hate to back track on a project. Believe me I pondered on that for quite some time. My time to knit is limited these days to maybe a few rows a week. I knew how long it took me to get this far along and how much longer my poor yarn calculations were going to cost me in catch up. Going back to add the dusty rose cost me half the progress in the project. The time devoted to knitting this lovely tunic sure makes undoing all that work heartbreaking. I did it though. As painful as it was I pressed on unraveling row after row. Finally once I got to where I felt the rose pink should be added I picked up the tunic dropping the blue for pink. Right away I knew it was the best decision. The tunic will look so much more balanced with the rose pink centered.

Unraveling a project is like going back in time. Going back in time without the benefit of being able to jump forward. Despite my feelings of loss for my energies put into the previous knitted progress I am pressing on. I am very eager to complete this project because I have plans for creating one for my youngest girl. Adelynn loves tunic length dresses and this pattern looks like it will serve my needs of keeping her happy looking "preeety" and my need for keeping her warm. As of late she has been quite fond of being without her jackets. Oh toddlers they are quite something aren't they? In the meantime I'm tucking this tunic in my handbag so that any moment I have a few minutes I can get one row closer to completion.

My Ravelry notes can be found here: Danni's Tunic

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