My Life Raincoat

I have a binder that I've been filling with outfits from Adorable Dolls for the 18-inch dolls. Her patterns are quite affordable, easy to follow, use available yarns or yarns easy to substitute from my stash and I generally can follow them to completion.

The one challenge I do find with her patterns sometimes is the formating. She has interesting ways of creating the shaping in her patterns so the stitch counts can be long in each row but I sometimes end up making notes as they can be challenging to follow as printed. The directions are clear and once I've written them out I never have trouble following them but formating them a little more clearly would make this situation ideal.

This pattern was worked from my Joann's Big Twist Stash. While a slightly lighter worsted I love the color selection and especially when on sale the price is very attractive, especially for my donation projects where spending less means I can do more.

You can purchase the pattern here.

American Girl Rain Coat

This is another pattern from the free pattern set Weatherby found here. This outfit works up quickly and I like adding it because I don't often make outdoor wear for the dolls. I like to vary the types of outfits I include in the donation and having an easy to make coat makes it an ideal choice.

At some point I need to find a boot pattern to go with this pattern.

American Girl Rainy Day

This has been one of the darkest rainy winters I can remember. A friend from Crochetville designed a group of patterns called Weatherby available for free here. With this weather the raincoat seemed like the perfect project to make after I finished Cinderella. When I started reading the directions for the raincoat, I discovered she'd designed a dress that would fit under the raincoat so I made that as well.

This is a fun pattern. The coat is made in one piece and then sewed together. I've never made anything this way and it was a fun design that worked up quite quickly. A swap partner sent me a bag of buttons a few years ago and I've recently rediscovered the many goodies it holds. I found some adorable duck feet buttons to finish off the coat.

The dress allowed me to continue my quest to use up my friend's yarn. I love the neck of this dress. It is an interesting design and I like the way it looks. I haven't worked one this way before, but I like the design and how it works up.