Ken Santa

When I find a Barbie family member I try to find enough of that model to last me a few years as I find each model seems to be slightly different in size which means I need to fit the patterns I have to the new model.

Last year I finished the last of my previous model, the Ken Travel Doll and this year am moving on to both the Ken It Takes Two Camping and the Barbie It Takes Two Camping . I have enough to last a few years before hunting for my next models.

I was curious to know how this Ken compared to my previous model and thankfully he's slightly larger. The Doctor model I had used prior to the Travel model was significantly smaller boned and the clothing was all too large. It was not fun adapting all his clothes.

This Ken project is part of my goal to add more holiday themed outfits to the donation this year. I may try to go back and add the Pilgrim outfits for Ken and Barbie after I finish as many Christmas outfits as I can find for the various sized dolls.

This outfit is a combination of an free Ken pattern only available through the Wayback machine and an Annie's Fashion Doll Crochet Club's Old World Santa and Mrs. Claus FC43-01. You can find the first page of the free pattern here. Page 2 is available here.

I've been using the hats from the free patterns to decorate some yoga skeletons for various holidays but I haven't made any of these outfits since I first started making Barbie clothes. I didn't read my notes about using the Pilgrim boots. I used the boots from the Annie pattern. I may try the Pilgrim boots when I make the Pilgrim outfit to see which ones fit best.

Notes:

I used old Red Heart Sport Yarn in Red instead of the suggested 4 ply yarn as I remember these outfits being large when I made them before for Santa's main outfit.

The white was Bernat Big Ball Baby yarn and the Black was Knit Picks Brava Sport Yarn. The gold was misc cotton yarn I had on hand.

I used an e hook except for the trim which was large with an e so I reduced to a D hook.

Pants:

I followed the directions for crocheting over elastic to create the waist.

The original pattern attaches the boots to the pants. I remember this not only not being fun to make but it also made it hard to get the pants hard to get on and off. This was my reason for looking for an alternate boot pattern. This means the pants have a total of 17 rows not 7. Other than changing count I found the pants pattern worked as written.

Jacket:

There is a snap at the top of the coat to help keep it closed. I didn't follow the directions for closing the belt. I made the belt as suggested and closed it like I do with the Our Generation Pilgrim Boy with a snap in the back and a sewed buckle on the front.

Hat and Beard:

I had to extend and expand the hat rows to get the width and length I wanted for Santa's hat. I think I went one row too far as it is slightly larger than I had wanted.

I played a little with the beard to get it to stretch across and then tacked the hat on to keep it folded up.

Boots:

I followed the basic pattern for the boots found in the Old World Santa pattern and then used the topper found in the free pattern. Use a D hook for top of boots.