Yellow Baby Doll Dress

Every year I promise myself that I will attack my stash yarn. As I write this in January, I feel like I'm already making a bigger impact on that goal than I have in previous years because I'm digging in to yarn that has been living here far too long.

I mentioned in a previous post about this pattern that I wanted to experiment with making this pattern with sport yarn, but didn't want to buy any. So I went digging to see what I had on hand. This dress was a product of that goal. I found one of those big balls of baby sport yarn and found a matching Bernat Satin to use as trim. I'm going to continue to look for patterns to use up the yellow ball along with the endless purple I've got on hand.

Notes to myself. I started out following the pattern directions but the dress was too tight using the e hook. I ended up needing a g hook to make this fit using sport weight yarn. With the g it is loose enough for little hands to take the dress off on and off easily as it has no buttons or snaps and one must be able to pull it on and off. While this is a plus for me because I don't have to sew buttons, it does require a balance to make it loose enough to allow it to slip on and off but not so big that it hangs off the doll. I think I accomplished that by going to the g hook.

I used two free patterns to make this outfit. The dress and hat are from Linmary Knits here. The shoes are also from a free pattern set Peachy Keen available here.

The shoes are a darker color as I needed to make them from worsted weight and this is the lightest yellow I have on hand. I need an I hook to make these shoes fit the doll.

Doll Blanket

I've been reading lots of posts lately about crocheting in public or do you take your crocheting with you. Well I do. I'm not good at waiting with nothing to do. I will sometimes bring a book or my Kindle to read, but depending on what I'm waiting for I can find it hard to concentrate on reading. I do find simple crochet projects work well during these times.

The challenge is sometimes I'm working on projects that don't "travel" well. Sometimes it's because the project needs to be fitted to a doll. I won't travel with a doll. They are heavy, awkward to manage in public, and let's be honest it just draws unnecessary attention. Sometimes I'm working on projects that need to be sewn together and that isn't something I enjoy doing when I might have to stop unexpectedly to move. I also can't count on having a place to lay out complicated directions so having a project with fairly simple directions and repeats is an ideal travel project.

Last fall when I was working on the Big Sister project I came across a perfect project that met my needs. The Little Angel Layette had an accompanying blanket which I didn't need for the Big Sister project as I'd already made a blanket for the doll. However, the pattern was perfect for my travel requirements. At the time I started this the fall I didn't have any projects on my hooks suitable for travel. I needed something I could take with me that would be simple to work and made me feel I was accomplishing something while I was dealing with wait times.

The day before an appointment in the middle of December I pulled this out and measured it against an 18" doll and realized it had reached the length I needed for it to be included in the doll donation. I finished it off. I was working on a doll changing pad at the time so that met the requirements for a simple travel project. I didn't start another doll blanket right away but there will be another one there soon I'm sure as it is nice to have a project with no deadline.

Technically I could have pushed and finished this blanket for the 2019 donation but I had plenty of blankets for the 2019 donation and this gave me a low pressure project finished for 2020. I've enjoyed having a project that doesn't have a deadline. I worked on it only when I was "traveling" and left it alone when I was home until it was time to finish it off.