Cat Mad Crochet

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

When I watch TV, watch is really a loose term that mostly means I was in the room while the TV was on, but I was probably crocheting. The exception to this is the one hour of every day when I call upon myself to suffer for my continued healthy existence by exercising. During that time, I like to focus on a show enough to distract myself from the horrors of regular physical fitness. Oh, I do it. I just don’t like it. Enter my latest fascination with finding crochet in unexpected places. 

Years ago when it first came out, I watched Pushing Daisies. I was a good enough crocheter then, though a newbie, to identify Charlotte Charles’s dress as crochet, but I missed the rest of the crochet in the show and, gasp, actually watched the show unaware. I decided to re-watch the series while I suffered the daily indignity of exercise to lose myself in the plot. My better trained eye started to pick up on the amount of crochet featured in the show and began to search for the crochet more than watch the plot unfold.

Charlotte’s dress in the first episode is eye-catching, but there is so very much more that I am now able to recognize as crochet. For the benefit of you, my dear, dear readers, I am watching the entire series while I exercise and taking small breaks to grab photos of the crocheted items I spot. Please forgive the grainy quality of some of the photos. They were taken in a period of self-imposed duress.  

Because it’s how my mind works, I have thoughts on how I would make the crochet dresses and sweaters that pop up throughout the show. I’ll share those thoughts, too, and maybe you will be inspired to try your own knockoff. I’ll go one episode at a time in each post to help with finding the items if you decide to watch for yourself.

Episode 1: Pie-lette

Charlotte Charles and her stunning golden crochet dress isn’t even on the screen yet when Olive appears in her perky, hot pink, crochet halter dress. I think this really sets the stage for the two characters throughout the show. Olive did it first, Charlotte gets the credit because she is just that much more. 

The bust panels of this dress look like the standard single crochet bralet tops you see so much these days. I like the detail of the border and the way it becomes the strap. That’s really nicely done and calls for perhaps a little shell design? The lines radiating from the center under the bust, though, really make this dress. I would use a linked double with lines of post stitching for that element. With those stitches, you could really tailor the skirt however you wanted, straight as seen or flared if that’s what you like. It doesn’t have to be an exact copy, it can be inspired by the original. 

Personally, I would ditch the hot pink. Definitely thin cotton yarn for this one with a medium-small hook to account for the lack of drape in the cotton.

And here it is! The dress that everyone who writes about crochet in Pushing Daisies talks about. It really is stunning. Whoever created this one really knew their crochet stuff.

So what do we have? We have glorious open lace worked in several directions to add interest and shaping. The collar is worked side to side, but the torso portion and the skirt are worked vertically. This creates a fabric that stretches better so fitting it to the form is infinitely easier. The waist echoes the side to side stitches of the collar and looks like rows of doubles with a row of doubles and chains between them. This would create stability between the body and the skirt while adding a little pop of interest. Nice. The little lacy border at the bottom is also worked side to side like the collar and the waist. I think it repeats the neckline, but with some more rows and flare.

The maker of this dress understood how to put different stitch patterns together both structurally and aesthetically to create drape and fit with those patterns. It’s a beautiful dress to anyone looking. It’s a masterpiece to anyone who knows crochet.

If I were to remake it, I would use a fingering weight silk so it had shimmer but looked less, well, less golden than the original. I’m not a fan of gold colored clothing. I would pick a border pattern for the neck and hem that allowed me to extend it with repeats of an early row so the neck and hem could mirror each other but the hem could be longer. I’m thinking of something like the Catherine Wheel for the body and skirt of the dress, but much more open. In an effort to make it my own, I might use either Peacock Lace from Crochet Every Way Stitch Dictionary.

Or Old World Lace from the same book.

Or even Raya Clover from Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia.

Any of these would provide the open, almost floating motif look of the original while making the new dress more my own.

Enter Charlotte’s aunts later in the show. Immediately, we see Aunt Lily in a motif cardigan! It’s done just right with a thin yarn and a beautiful repeat. This is a garment I would make and be proud of.

I think this would be stunning in a natural colored linen thread. I would use a tiny hook (2 mm) and scream at myself for making such a choice later, but the final result would be worth it. 

It looks like there is a larger motif with a double crochet center, a row of doubles with chains between and then some sort of shell around the outside surrounded by a round of chains. Between those, there is a smaller filler motif with a double crochet center and chain petals around it. The overall effect is of motifs floating in a mesh ground. It’s amazing. I like the little tuck in the sleeve hem; I love that it is thin and flexible enough to be tied at the waist and it doesn’t look weird. I think making long tails on the front sides so it could be tied would help recreate the look. 

With an eye toward making it my own, I might use any of these three motifs from Crochet Lace Motifs, a Japanese book put out by Vogue Japan.

This one creates its own filler motifs, saving me time weaving ends.

This one could be done with chain loops instead of the beads and another row of chains around the edge to connect them and give the filler motifs something to play off of.

This one already has the edge chain groups, so I could just work out a filler bit that fit between them and off I could go.

Watching for crochet pieces definitely made the horrors of exercise a little less. I will keep watching and report back to you what I find. If you have a show to suggest that has some awesome crochet cameos, let me know in the comments or drop me an email. 

Happy crafting!