Crochet Theseus Dress

I used to wonder what my niche really is when it comes to crocheting. I love making amigurumis, I also love crocheting accessories like earrings, I've also entered the realm of home decors. But so far, I've crocheted a lot more wearables than I planned or expected. My daughter has been my consistent model/endorser of my crochet kiddie wearables.

Some/most of those projects took me months to complete. For this project that I'm sharing with you, I'd say this is the quickest, yet most beautifully done projects I ever have made.

It all started with a dare.

Every month, we have our cluster meetup in our homeschooling community. Each month, there's a theme. Last August, we had the Linggo ng wika celebration. For September, the theme is about Literature and the kids had to come in their favorite character's costume.

My daughter chose Theseus. If you're not familiar with him, he was the one who killed the Minotaur. You can read more about him in the Tanglewood Tales book. Anyway, we bought the sword and the sandals, which was like his signature trinkets according to the story. Silly me, I thought we're done. I was too busy because I was one of the organizers of the event, I forgot that my daughter will also need a Greek-like costume so that she can properly represent Theseus - the girl version.

As one of the organizers, we've been so occupied with all the preparations for the children's activities on the event. Then, we also still have to perform our duties as parent-educators. It slipped my mind that I still have to produce a costume for my little one.

I thought of buying the costume at the mall coz online shopping will take a lot of time, it might not make it to the date. But mall prices are so steep for those kinds of costumes. And being a crocheter, I'd rather make one myself. I mean why spend Php850 for a single use costume when I can spend hours and hours, and a lot more money for yarn, right? LOL

So there's this one fellow homeschooler who has become my friend who said "Crochet mo na lang yan. I dare you!" And yeah, I took the bait. I took the dare. I looked for design ideas online on how Theseus would look like if he was a girl. It's giving Athena vibes, actually. And I liked it!

I went ahead and created a draft of how I plan the dress would look like. When I showed it to my daughter, she said she liked it too, so I went ahead and started winding my yarns. There's still a lot of off-white/cream colored indophil yarns in my stash so that's less cash outflow for me. It means the only thing I'm going to use up most is my time. The husband asked me if I can indeed complete it in 7 days. Yes, there's only 7 days left before the event.

I took that question as another dare. LOL. Three days into making the dress, my daughter was starting to feel worried. She asked me if I can really finish it before the event. There was 4 days left before deadline. Of course, I once again took it as a challenge. Lo and behold! The crochet Theseus dress was completed in 5 days!

This might I say is my proudest moment in my crocheting history!

I completed the top part of the dress in day 1. I did a lot of frogging because halfway through the top, I wasn't feeling it. I started from the very beginning several times. Then, I found my groove and once I found it, I stuck to it and really committed to it to the end. Day 2, I finished 1/3 of the 3 layer skirt. I was starting to feel a bit too worked up. I was starting to wanna make small side project but I know that if I do, I won't have enough time to finish the dress. So instead of making a side project, I worked on the straps. I learned to make Forget Me Nots while still attached to the straps. I usually make these flowers separate and would just stitch it into the project as an applique. But for this one, I did it continuously because I am not a big fan of stitching appliques.

Day 3 and 4, I finished working on the skirt. It should have been done by then but when I had my daughter put it on, it was just a few inches too short. I did not realize that my daughter has grown so much. She really is no longer a baby. Day 5, I had to add a few more rows on the skirt. And since I was already working on it, I added a few more finishing touches on the skirt.

_{The first photo here took me months to finish.}

I used to call myself "the slow crocheter" but now, I can say that a good challenge does push people to break free from their labels. I'm glad that fellow homeschool momma challenged me. I have unlocked a whole new level in my crocheting journey.