Cross-stitch sampler update

This is a long-running project of mine, which is actually progressing faster in some ways than I thought it would.  Having stopped at about here after running out of thread, and getting on with other projects like this, I've come back to my cross-stitch like an old friend for doing on lonely evenings in front of the telly.

The top two rows of leaves and deer are now finished, so I know exactly how wide my piece is going to be.  Unfortunately, it looks like becoming just a little too wide  - if I have to stitch right up to the edge of my cross-stitch material, I might have to put the edge of the fabric across the centre of my embroidery hoop, which makes for awkward loose stitches and fraying problems.  Thankfully I have a little ordinary fabric put by with which to make a broad 'working border'. 

This border probably won't make it to the final cut as it were; I intend to hem the work off, but either with more elegant fabric than this or invisibly.  Then it can be hung on poles or framed as an attractive (hopefully) bit of Art.  This is just to give me that little extra legroom as it were to work at the very edge of my cross-stitch fabric.

I know where the corners of my pattern will go; I also know where the centre should be now, at least vertically.  This means that I can start placing the names of my relatives accurately in the border and really making this project into a proper family tree.  I'm starting with my mother's parents, as I know Granny likes a bit of tapestry work herself and is very proud of her projects. 

A Top Tip:
Cross-stitches can be done half at a time all in a long row, like this: ////////// and back again \\\\\\\\;
Or you can do them one at a time, like this: X X X X X to get the same result.
The difference between these two methods is that with the first, you end up in the pattern where you started, and with the second, you progress across the pattern stitch by stitch.  The second also means that you may start each X in a different corner each time, as you cannot re-enter where you just finished. 
If your pattern is complex, involving a lot of spaces and jumps across other colours, you may wish to combine these two techniques judiciously in order to 'jump' between adjacent 'blocks' of the same colour.  I have found the brown border responds particularly well to the XXXX treatment when trying to count to the beginning of the next repeat.

Raspberry Lamingtons

A posh twist on an old Aussie favourite, these were created for the father and stepmother to enjoy after a rich Sunday lunch.  Little and light, they're a moreish teatime thing.  There aren't many ingredients, but there are two stages of creation; if you're too bored to bother individually coating little cubes, then melt some jam over the whole cake when cool and scatter with coconut for a twinkly icing substitute.

Raspberry Lamingtons
You Will Need:  Large bowl, wooden spoon, scales, fork, small dish, small shallow rectangular baking tray, greaseproof paper, cooling rack, knife, chopping board, saucepan, teaspoon, small plate, serving plate

2 eggs
4 1/2 oz butter
4 1/2 oz sugar
4 1/2 oz self-raising flour
150g fresh raspberries
half a jar of raspberry jam
75g dessicated coconut

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.  Cream the butter and sugar in the large bowl; beat the eggs in the small bowl with the fork and incorporate very slowly.
2) Fold in the flour a little at a time.  Line the tin with a wide strip of greaseproof paper, greasing the sides if not non-stick with a little butter.  Pour the cakemix into the tin and spread to the edges.
3) Stud the cake with raspberries, 1/2 cm apart.  Reserve any remaining fruits for making a 'serving suggestion' style flourish.
4) Bake for 15-20 minutes to clean skewer stage.  Turn out onto a cooling rack.  When cool, cut the cake into small cubular pieces.
5) Melt 1-2 teaspoons of jam at a time in the small saucepan until runny and steaming; pour into a small dish.  Scatter coconut on a small plate.  Dip each lamington in jam on all sides and then roll them in the coconut to cover.  Pile on the serving plate.  If your jam gets too jammy for dipping, pour it back into the pan to re-heat.
Serve scattered with any remaining raspberries and a big mug of tea each.

Knitting A Dress In The Round: FINISH HIM

The above title is an allusion to 90s beat-em-up button masher Mortal Kombat, in case you were wondering.

Once you have reached up to two-three inches of your desired final length, stop doing the lace repeats and work three rows of knit stitches, knitting over the purled decrease-triangles (they were only purled to keep them visually separate from the lace).  On your fouth row, do a picot row: *knit1, yarnover, knit2tog*; then do another six rows of knit stitches, followed by another picot row; followed by another two rows of knit stitches.  Now cast off. 


Turn the work wrong-side out, and fold up the hem along the lowest row of picot holes.  Slip-stitch the hem into place with the last of your wool.  Weave in any dangly ends you can see using the TechKnitting tips to help you (they are AMAZINGly good).

Try on your dress right-side-out before blocking, to see which directions it needs to stretch and be moulded.   Bear in mind that the lace will expand downwards a good way when blocked, outwards too.

N.B. the increase/decrease diamond has flattened out

Now hand-wash your dress in warm water with delicates-washing soap.  Don't bash it about too much as we don't want to obscure all the holes in the lace by felting the wool (which makes it fluffy).  When you're bored, pull the dress into a long thick rope top-to-bottom and squeeze the water out from the bodice to the hem.  This helps to lengthen it and straighten the lace stitches.  Lay a towel over a large chair or sofa, and using as many pins as it takes to hold it down, stretch and shape it so that the picot rows stand out at the upper edge and the increase section is nice and flared.  Leave to dry naturally.

Meanwhile, choose your ribbon.  I am lucky enough to live and work just round the corner from VVRouleaux, a boutique which specialises in designer trimmings, ribbon and frills.  Strikingly-coloured ribbons can be a surprisingly cheap or expensive way to tart up a craft creation, depending on how difficult it is to make the ribbons in the first place.  As my dress is an ivory white, I had to choose carefully to get the right level of subtle 'accent' colour.  The light in my workroom is awful but the ribbon is grey/lavender.

When your dress is dry, attach a safety-pin to one end of your ribbon, and using the blunt 'head' end weave approx. 1 metre of ribbon through all of the picot holes at the top edge and under the bust.  Start at the centre, work your way round and cut leaving plenty of length for loosening the tension and for a bow.  Trim the ends with the traditional triangle to discourage fraying, or carefully roll the ends back on themselves and secure with a few tiny stitches.

Done!

Failsafe Chocolate Mousse Panacotta

Originally presented with strawberries and cream...

I say failsafe because I didn't use a recipe to make this first time and it still didn't fail.  There is a lot of literature out there which says that if you do the Wrong Thing to anything which involves chocolate, you are a Bad Person and your concoction will be a Désastre.  They then give a lot of proscriptive instructions.  I will try to make my instructions as much 'stir-it-and-see' as I can get.
The literature also generally involves a lot of 'milk or tea first in cup'-type arguments about whether to have hot chocolate and cold cream, or hot both, or hot cream and cold chocolate.  I went for the latter simply because my 'recipe' involves melting gelatine, and this seemed easier to do in cream than choccy.
People also talk a lot of guff about Valhrona and the importance of using 'really GOOD QUALITY' chocolate for any and all things.  I may be very middle class, but Sainsbury's cooking, Dark, has always been good enough for me and mine.

For the moulds I cannot recommend silicone cupcake cases highly enough - they give such a lovely even shape. But you can always serve mousse in little pretty cups (or even ugly cups) if occasion calls.

Chocolate Mousse Panacotta
  - to make well in advance of eating
You Will Need: sharp knife, chopping board, measuring jug, small saucepan, wooden spoon, 2 cups, small bowl, fork, whisk, large bowl, moulds/serving dishes.  If using silicone moulds, plates.  Serving platelets.

100g dark chocolate
150-160ml double cream, plus dribble to decorate
1 leaf leaf gelatine
2 eggs
fruit to serve

1) Break the chocolate and chop it into small slivery pieces.   Put in the larger bowl.  Soak the leaf of gelatine in a cup of cold water for about five minutes.  Meanwhile,
2) heat the cream gently in the saucepan until hot-bath-hot to touch.  Separate the eggs, with the whites going in the small bowl and the yolks into the second cup.  Beat the yolks with the fork and mix them into the hot cream to make a quick custard.  Fish the gelatine out of the water and add to the cream.  Stir to dissolve.
3) Pour the hot cream over the chocolate, and stir until the chocolate is all melted.  If choccy lumps give you trouble, rinse and refill your saucepan with water, plonk the bowl on top of the saucepan, and heat again, stirring continuously.  This gentle method will stop the mixture from curdling.*
4) Whisk your eggwhites to a stiff-peak stage, and gently whisk them 1/3 at a time into the chocolate mixture.
5) Fill your bowls or moulds with mousse mix.  If using floppy individual silicone moulds, you may find that sitting them on a plate stops them from wibbling EVERYWHERE as you move them to the fridge.

6) Allow to set in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
7) Cut your fruit decoratively; dismount your puds onto little plates, garnish with fruity pretentiousness and drizzle with cream á la Michelin.  This pudding should have a Faff -to- Posh ratio of about 1:5.

*This is as close as I get to telling people what to do to their chocolate.  Provided you heat it using the gentlest methods, especially when adding more fat (i.e. cream), it is much more forgiving than you might think.

ProTip: I did mention to my boyfriend (after he puzzled over the ingredients resulting in the stipple-effect look) that there was gelatine in these, and he made a face. 'I know it's fine, and you can't taste it, but...' Gelatine still means packets of cubular strawberry jelly to many people, and even though I was using leaf posh stuff (which is both a ProTip in itself and tasteless) negative associations are strong.  So if you want to keep your choccy-beneficiaries out of the loop and act all mysterious, feel free not to share the recipe too widely.

Moroccan Main Dishes

Here you can see the remains of the Easter Feast which i created on Saturday.  Although it felt like a long day of cooking had happened, none of these things actually take very much work - just monitoring.

Slow-Cooked Spicy Lamb Shanks

You Will Need: Oven tray, tinfoil, sharp knife and chopping board

1 lamb shank per person (or to share between 2 unhungry people)

jar of anchovies

clove of garlic per lamb shank

spice mix - to include coriander, cumin, salt, black pepper, chopped garlic

1) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.  Line the oven tray with tinfoil.

2) If you don't know the weight of your meat, weigh it.  Stab the lamb shanks in their juiciest bits.  Chop anchovies in half and garlic cloves into thin slices, and push an anchovy and sliver firmly into each stab with your fingers.

3) Arrange the shanks in the tin and sprinkle over the spice mix.  I used a bought tin of generic Moroccan goodness I had from years ago, but you could make your own.  Use enough to coat the shanks on both sides and rub well in.

4) Cover the shanks with another layer of tinfoil, and tuck in the edges.  Wham in the oven, then turn it down  to 150 degrees C.  Bake for about 40 minutes per pound and then some if you can manage it.

Lamb Kofta Kebabs

You Will Need: wooden skewers, oven tray, large bowl, fork, chopping board, knife, cheesegrater.

Mint to the left already looking limp

500g lamb mince
half a red onion
6 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
large bunch of fresh mint
1 egg

1) Soak the wooden skewers in water to stop them from catching fire under the grill.
2) Preheat the grill.
3) Grate as much as possible of the onion on the larger holes of the cheesegrater; chop the garlic and mint finely.  Add to the mince in the large bowl.  Break in the egg to one side and beat with the fork.  Now use the fork to mush it all together until smooth.
4) Get your hands in and make comfortably sized phallic lumps of meat; slide a wet skewer into each one.  Place on the oven tray as you go.  If you have any left over, make the meat into patties to fry like burgers - they won't need any extra fat.
5) Grill until well browned, turning once during cooking to get both sides.  These heat up well in the oven or back under the grill later if you should need to grill a big tray of something else:

Stuffed Peppers
You Will Need: Oven tray, chopping board, knife, small bowl, kettle

Large bell peppers, half per person or two for a veggie main
olive oil
couscous
sultanas or chopped apricots
flaked almonds or pistachios
cumin
salt
greek cheese e.g. feta

1) Preheat the grill.
2) Cut the peppers lengthwise, removing any seeds but keeping the stems on for decoration.  Pour a little oil into each one, roll it around the inside to coat and rub on the outside as well.  Grill on the oven tray until blackening, then turn over to do the other side.
3) Meanwhile, make your couscous as per packet instructions - about 2 dessertspoonfuls per pepper or less.  Add a handful of fruit and nuts and a pinch of salt and cumin to make things interesting.  Chop the cheese into small pieces.
4) Take the grilly peppers out, fill with couscous and top with cheese.  Put back under the grill until the cheese is browning and squidgy.

Moroccan Starters

Top right: couscous with flaked almonds, black pepper and ground cumin

This Easter I indulged my friends eating and my cooking by conceiving an enormous Moroccan feast.  There were six of us to dinner, and there are still leftovers to feed 2 people, so do take my measurements with a pinch of salt and pay more attention to the proportions to get appropriate amounts of everything.

Tabbouleh
You Will Need: Large bowl, large saucepan, colander, chopping board, sharp knife, lemon squeezer

300g bulghur wheat or pearl barley
6 large fresh tomatoes
large red onion
large bunch of curly-leaved parsley
juice 3 lemons
2 tablespoons olive oil

1) Bring a pan of water to the boil.  Simmer the grains for about 40 minutes, until nutty but definitely chewable.  You may wish to do this in advance, drain and keep in the fridge until you are nearly ready to make the rest of dinner.
2) Finely chop the tomatoes, onion and parsley.
3) Juice the lemons.  Mix all of the ingredients together in the large bowl.

 Grilled Tomatoes
You Will Need: Roasting tin, knife, kitchen foil
1 packet cherry tomatoes on the vine
1/2 packet Feta or other hard Greek cheese
flaked almonds
olive oil

1) Preheat the grill.
2) Chop the feta into small pieces. Line the tin with tinfoil, arrange the ingredients and drizzle with oil.
3) Grill until the tomato stems are blackened and the skins are wrinkled off, about 7-10 minutes.

Grape and Pine-Nut Salad


You Will Need: large bowl, lemon squeezer, small frying pan

1 bag sweet fresh salad
1 packet white grapes
pine nuts
2 lemons
olive oil

1) Toast the pine nuts in the little frying pan: get the pan hot, pour in the nuts without any oil and shuffle them until browned and fragrant.
2) Squeeze the lemons.
3) In the large bowl, mix the salad, grapes and nuts; dress with lemon juice and olive oil.

Simnel Cake

To the left, iced tea made with 3 bags Lady Grey, 4 sprigs mint and 1 lemon to 1 litre boiling water

Christians really seem to like their fruitcakes for special holidays.  At least English Christians do, and I love fruitcake, so I am happy to go along.  Both Christmas Cake and Simnel Cake (Easter cake) contain dried fruit, and use marzipan as part of the icing.  The difference is that Simnel Cake is superior, as it is both a lighter cake (no treacle) and is divided into two or three layers by marzipan circles.  This means that it is impossible for all of the fruit to sink to the bottom.
This large and imposing article formed the pudding for a Moroccan Easter dinner, which was to have involved roast figs.  Unfortunately Waitrose (Christ's own supermarket) didn't have any fresh figs (Jesus does like them, but decrees that they should be unavailable).  You could very much use dates and dried figs in this recipe if you like, but for lightness I prefer pears and apricots.

Simnel Cake

6 eggs (13oz)
13oz butter
6oz light brown soft sugar
3 oz caster sugar
1.5 tblsp clear runny honey
10oz dried fruit - dried pears, cranberries, apricots, vine fruits (use minimum amounts of raisins).
zest 1 lemon
zest 3 clementines
chopped flesh 1 clementine
2 Lady Grey teabags
300ml boiling water
13oz self-raising flour
1tsp ground cardamom (or 1/2 tsp nutmeg)
2tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
packet marzipan - 200g ish
jam
11 chocolate Mini Eggs

 You Will Need: 24cm cake tin, large bowl, small bowl, scales, kettle, measuirng jug, sieve, saucepan, chopping board and sharp knife, zester/cheese grater, wooden spoon, whisk, teaspoon, tablespoon, rolling pin, serving plate

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.  Boil a kettle.
2) Put the two Lady Grey teabags in the measuring jug and make 300ml of tea with the boiling water.  Leave to steep while you do Step3.
3) Chop any larger pieces of dried fruit into raisin-sized pieces.  Put the dried fruits into the small bowl with the citrus zest.  When it is ready, pour over the tea to cover and leave to soak.
4) Weigh 6 eggs (mine came to 13oz more or less; one normal egg is about 2oz).  Weigh out the same amount of butter, and melt in the pan with the sugars and honey.  Don't get too niggly about the amount of honey which sticks to the spoon, if you use the measuring spoon to stir the mix it will all come out in the wash.
5) While the butter and sugar is melting, quickly beat the eggs together in the large bowl.  Go back and stir the butter/sugar until all the butter has melted and the mixture is caramel brown.  Now very carefully pour the melted mix onto the eggs, whisking to mix as you go in a steady stream.  This is by far a superior technique for speed than creaming things.
6) Strain the fruits out of the tea.  Add the fruits to the eggmix; chop the clementine into raisin-sized pieces and stir in.  Add 100ml of the tea.  When mixed well, weigh out flour to match your eggs and butter.  Stir in the spices.  Fold the flour and spices into the fruitmix a quarter at a time, until smooth.
7) Put the finished cakemix aside.  Divide your packet of marzipan into 4 equal pieces.  Scatter caster sugar over your worksurface, and roll out circles the size of your caketin using 2 quarters.  Pour 1/3 of your cakemix into the tin; cover with a marzipan circle; pour in another 1/3, another circle; finish with the last 1/3.
8) Bake for approximately 1 hour 30mins, or until a skewer in the very middle comes out clean.  If it looks to be browning too much at the edges, put a piece of tinfoil over the tin to protect the top of the cake from burning.
9) Allow the cake to cool completely, and turn out onto its eventual serving plate.  Spread the top with a fine layer of jam.  Roll out one last circle of marzipan and cover the top of the cake with it, trimming any loose edges.  Using the last quarter of the marzipan, make 11 balls to decorate the top.  These represent the faithful Apostles e.g. everyone except Judas.  I have made marziflower-nests for 11 mini eggs because I am a hopeless pagan.

Knitting A Dress In The Round - Flaring the Skirt

By now, if you were getting really bored of this project, you could safely call what you've knitted a 'top'; if you wanted to leave it there, I suggest another two evenly-spaced picot rows at the bottom.  Cast off, and fold the last few rows back along the picot holes, making a nice even scalloped edge.  Hem, and follow the instructions on my 'Finishing' post (in the future) to decorate and fit your garment.

If you're not bored, hooray!  We are now going to very gently flare the lace pattern out over your hips and keep going.

N.B. I have realised while writing this that I keep saying 'your' all the time, as though this blog was directed exclusively at knitting women/dress wearers.  Knitting trouser-wearers: if you are with me on this project, please make sure you measure the intended wearer carefully and at all the relevant points - over-bust, under-bust, between busts, waist, hips, and down the middle.  This presumes a certain intimacy with the person concerned.  Good luck!

Flaring the Skirt
You Will Need your stitch-markers back.  Using your gague, work out how many stitches you will need to add to make up the difference between your waist and hip measurement.

My waist =28ins, and hips=31ins, so I need 3 ins of increase.  At 8 stitches to an inch (or thereabouts) that means adding 24 stitches.  I don't intend to do this all in one go, as it will deform the garment.  Instead, the stitches will be added gradually over a series of rows.

Count the number of lace repeats (groups of 9 stitches) you have on one row.  Divide this number by your gague count.  The result will be the number of repeats between stitch-markers, and between bands of increase stitches.

The red triangle surrounds the purled increase stitches in front of the stitch-marker.  

Follow the pattern below for a smooth transition.  Continue knitting the lace in bands with purl-bands between until you reach nearly the length you want.  Then go to Finishing...

Knitting a Dress in the Round - Main Lace Pattern

Diagonal Lace 2
Here's a link to the lace pattern which I have been using for the body of my dress.  I realised that I personally would go much faster if I used right-leaning decreases (k2tog) rather than left-leaning ones (ssk) so have actually turned the pattern inside out.  If you'd like to do this:

1) Read the pattern 'backwards,' right-to-left when it's written out.
2) Remember that in an instruction '(yo, k1) twice' you will still be reading right to left, so actually (k1, yo) twice.
3) Substitute right-leaners for left leaners, and vice versa.  This is much easier when there's only one kind of decrease in your pattern - e.g. I simply replace every instance of 'ssk' with 'k2tog'.

Here's a further link to the TECHKnitting post where I checked that this would work!  Scroll to the last comments.

Knitting Lace in the Round

It can be done - it just takes a little thought.
When reading your pattern,   if stitches are marked off for the beginning and end of rows - leave them out.  Just do the main lace repeat section for each row all the way round.  E.g. in my pattern, I do not knit 1 at the end and beginning of each row as described.

The lace pattern which I'm using uses multiples of 9 stitches: to create the pattern shown needs a minimum band of nine stitches wide and 36 rows long.  You must knit to get the correct measurement for you according to your gague - if your eventual under-bust stitch-count is not a multiple of 9, fear not.  Start each row with the lace repeat, and at the end of the row knit any stitches which won't fit.  Since the beginning and end of the row is at the back of the garment, this will leave a long strip of plain stockinette down the back which can be decorated with false-pearl buttons as a feature of the dress.

Knitting the Torso

After your decrease rows, do another 2 rows of plain knit stitches, then another picot row - *k1, yo, k2tog*.  Finish this feature with another two rows of plain knit stitches; as you go, remove all of your stitch counters except that which reminds you where the beginning of the round is.  

Measure your torso down to where your hips start to flare out, from your bustline to under your bellybutton.  Follow the lace pattern (plus knitting any odd stitches at the end) until you have the correct length. 

Next I will work out and blog how to flare the skirt gracefully, and choose a different lace or fringe for the hem.  See you soon!

Knitting A Dress In The Round: Lower Bodice

The decreasing section of this dress is more fiddly, as I decided I wanted to have darts down under the busts for subtle(ish) shaping.

The diagram (hooray feeble MS Painting) on the right represents your finished frock.

Dotted lines = picot rows.  Note the under-bust picot row after the decrease rows.

Strong black lines show the direction of increases and decreases.  Measure yourself along the long red line before beginning your decrease rows.

Measure the length generated by your increase rows (short red line).  This will be mirrored by your decrease rows.  If between them they do not add up to the length of the bodice total, you will need to add an appropriate number of plain knit rows between increasing and decreasing (as shown on diagrams).

To locate your darts, measure the distance between the centre of your chest and one of your *ahem* most pointy areas.  Using your gague (stitches per inch), count back an appropriate number of stitches from the centre of your garment and place another stitch marker.  Mirror this pattern to find the beginning of your second dart on the other side of the garment.  As the distances will vary, stitches between the darts are not marked on the chart.

The chart below should be followed from RIGHT TO LEFT and includes a pattern for the increase rows.

Knitting a Dress in the Round: Upper Bodice

N.B: the working edge is nearer the bottom of the garment, so this  is 'upside down'

After all my protestations of feebleness after (barely) knitting the Hurricane Hat, I've begun to knit a dress in the round.  My logic was as follows:
1) a dress is just a very wide tube with sleeves.
2) some dresses do without sleeves, making them even more of a tube.
3) My mother just showed me how to do a 'picot hem', which produces an even row of holes all the way across/around a garment.
4) A picot hem makes an excellent way of threading colourful ribbon around an edge, to gather and tighten a garment at the bustline or waist.
5) If I measure myself, and work out where to increase and decrease at the right points, I could make a widening and narrowing tube which gathers ribbon-taut around ma bazongas.  This would be impressive, and warm.
6) If I did the lower half in lace, it would be less warm and less stuffed-caterpillar-looking, and have more give in the fabric to get a good fit.
7) TO KEMPS!

I have never swatched so much as I have swatched to design this project.  Swatching is when you make a little square of fabric with your chosen wool on your chosen needles, and measure how many stitches per inch you come out with.  This is your gague.  If it's too many compared to your pattern or the count on your ball of wool, you need bigger needles; too few, smaller.  I also used my swatches to test different kinds of increase and decrease out, trying to find the most appealing.  The incredible TechKnitting blog (linked at the sidebar) has been an invaluable help with this.  I recommend you follow it, for the diagrams alone.

Picot and Lace Knitted Dress - Upper Bodice

To generate my dress, I swatched out my white fingering-weight yarn on 3.5mm needles.  I measured myself at key points (vital statistics etc.) in inches, then multiplied those numbers by my gague to find my cast-on number, and targets for increasing and decreasing to.

The first part of the project is the picot hem.  Cast on as above according to your (measurement under the armpit x gague), adding stitch-markers every 20 stitches.  Knit round 3 rows.  On the fourth row,

*knit 1, yarnover, knit two together* - repeat between the ** until you reach the end of the row, and knit any remaining stitches.

Showing two lines of 'picot' and the increased and decreased central diamond

Identify the centre of your garment, opposite the beginning of the row.  Place a stitch-marker there as you knit your next row.
To identify the number of increase stitches you need, calculate the difference between your under-armpit and bust measurements.  Multiply this by your gague.  I came out with 2 inches, or 15 stitches, because I have no bust.
The increases form a triangle at the centre of the work:
1) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit;
2) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 1; increase 1; knit;
3) knit; find marker; increase 1, knit 3; increase 1; knit;
4) knit; find marker; increase 1, knit 5, increase 1; knit;
5) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 7; increase 1; knit;
6) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 9; increase 1; knit;
7) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 11; increase 1; knit;
8) knit; find marker; increase 1; knit 13; increase 1; knit
etc. for larger busts.

That's enough for now - I'll continue these posts as I work my way down the dress.  The decrease rows are a little more complicated.

Belted tunic dress

This isn't something I can really claim as my own, it's a New Look dress pattern (below) but the bead detail is mine.

It's made of the electric blue silk which the Man brought me back gosh, how long ago? many months... and I hadn't finished it yet because I suspected that turning the belt inside out would be an arse.  I reckoned without the smoothness of silk though, and in the end the fiddly little tie-ends were the biggest doddle of the whole project.

Look how blue!