Chelsea Christmas Dress

Chelsea enters the 2026 donation with a Christmas outfit made from two free patterns. The dress is the free Simply Bluetiful pattern found here. The hat is the same one hat I used for Skipper found here.

I was able to finish Skipper and Chelsea's dresses two days before Christmas. It is fun to crochet Christmas items during the holiday season itself.

Notes:

Dress:

This dress has become a staple for Chelsea although I don't believe it made it into the 2025 donation as I'd tried a bunch of new pattern for Chelsea.

I believe these are both Aunt Lydia's size 10 crochet thread but for my notes the variegated is Aunt Lydia's Shades of Christmas. I had bought some for pot holders a while back and am working on using up orphan fiber.

To fit this Chelsea I need a 1.8 mm thread crochet hook.

I do not overlap the back as suggested in the pattern as I find the dress is then too tight.

The final row is a trim and depending on my mood I add or leave off. Wanting to add the contrasting color thread I chose to use the trim row. I would do this again in the future for a Christmas dress.

Hat:

The major change to the hat is I used the 1.8 mm hook for the hat. It fit her head better and it also looks like it will work for Stacie.

I hate making pom poms. I had an 18 inch doll Santa hat years ago that crochet balls and added them so that's what I've been doing this year. !0dc into magic circle. 2dc into each dc for 20 total. Finish off and close to make ball leaving end to sew to hat.

Skipper Christmas Dress

I am always excited to find free pattern that I can make to use for the donation. This is a free Barbie Santa Claus pattern you can find here. It required little adaptation to make it fit the smaller Skipper doll.



Notes:

I used Aunt Lydia's size 10 Atom red and white for this project with a size B hook.

I changed the directions for joining and joined after row 6 of the bodice using only 2 snaps to close the back.

Skipper is shorter than Barbie and flatter chested so I only did 4 rows of the white trim on top. I originally added more but it was too overwhelming for the dress.

This is designed as a Mrs. Claus outfit but I decided to leave it as more of a Christmas dress as I thought if you took off the Santa hat it could be used for other dress up play.

16 Inch Baby Doll Wipes

While I've replaced many of the diaper bag items with the Melissa and Doug Feeding Kit I've continued to make the diapers, bibs, and these wipes.

While many of the kits include bibs they don't always fit the dolls I buy so I fit the bibs to the model dolls I keep for clothes making to make sure they do fit. I crochet the diapers because the plastic disposible ones don't last long and I don't sew so making real cloth diapers isn't happening. The crochet ones provide a fun play experience that I have been able to sustain over the years.

That brings me to the wipes. Most of the diaper kits do include a fake wipes kit. Some are empty and others include paper either wet or dry but they don't last long. I found this no longer available diaper bag kit from Crochet n'Play. The wipes are reusable and washable which gives it the potential to last longer.

With this complete the first 16 baby doll diaper bag accessories are complete. This is a change from previous years when I completed items not sets. I would do all the diapers, then the bibs, etc. It feels good to know one doll is done.