Lots to Love 10 Inch Doll Sweetly Sweater and Pants

I started this sweater pattern from the Sweetly free pattern set found here last week and it ended up being worn by the Lots to Love 14" Baby Doll.

For this experiment I used a D hook for the sweater and and E for the pants. The yarn was a combination of no longer available Red Heart Sport Yarn, Bernat Baby Big Ball Sport Yarn, Baby Yellow and, Ombres, Baby Baby.

I was trying to adjust for size as using the yarn I had on hand and with my sometimes odd guage the original pattern fit the 14 inch doll. When I make this again for the 10 inch doll I'd consider using an E hook for the neck area and switching back to the D hook after the first few rows. The sweater fit well everywhere but that top area as it is built to be a roomy sweater but with the D hook the top was a little snug.

The pants again were a simple top down design split for the crotch. I tightened the top with a sc around the starting crochet at the top sc 4 dc around.

Lots to Love 10 inch Doll Top, Pants, Bonnet, and Booties

As I was searching through patterns trying to decide where to go next I stumbled across one of Darski's free pattern sets for the 10 inch dolls called Sweetly found here. This set like the Layette one have multiple outfits and I'll be working my way through them and likely trying to adapt them for the smaller dolls as well.

I used Bernat Baby Big Ball Sport Yarn, Baby Pink and Baby Yellow with an E hook for most of the outfit. The bonnet required a G hook.

Notes:

The shirt, bonnet, and booties worked up as written.

In the future I might try a smaller hook for the booties as they were a little larger than I had hoped for but they don't fall off the doll.

There are multiple ways to make pants but two you often see in doll clothes are making the waist and splitting for the crotch conintuing with the legs and the second making the legs and connecting them at the crotch and making the top of the pants.

Darski's patterns tend to be legs first, I tend to prefer top first so I remade the pants to be top down. It is just something I find easier when making doll pants. Unless I'm doing footed outfits I tend to stick with the top down and work around what ever challenges that presents.

One last note the ties should have been attached a little further back for optimal fitting but each project is a learning experience.

Lots to Love 10 Inch Doll Diapers

One of the advantages of working with so many different doll sizes is when you make something you have a pretty good chance that it will fit one of them.

Those of you who follow this blog know I have been making doll clothes for this donation project for some time. While there are some go to patterns that I return to year after year because they are quick to complete and guarenteed to work every year I try to try new things that keep the project interesting. Some are small projects others more daring. This year I came across this free diaper pattern you can find here.

I've never made diapers for the 10" Lots to Love Dolls and I didn't set out to do that when I made the first one of these. The pattern suggested they were made for Baby Alive which I believe to be a 14" doll. So I was thinking these might work for the JC Toys, Lots to Love Babies 14 inches Baby Doll but that didn't work out. As I mentioned above one of the advantages of donating multiple sizes is most of the time when I make something one of the dolls can use it. So while I hadn't intended to put diapers on the 10 inch doll it now has two and I'll likely make these for next year as they work up quickly.

I narrowed the the crotch section to make it fit through the legs by using decreasing sc rows with a g hook until I was through the crotch section then once passed the crotch I returned to the H hook and DC and increased the rows to get back to the required stitch count, ending in the sc row.

If I incldue diapers for the dolls I try to make 2 so the doll can wear one and then the child has a diaper to "change" the doll into.

The advantage of cloth diapers for dolls is they are reusable. I crochet mine but other people sew them and they all serve the same purpose. I know my now adult nieces used to get frustrated when the disposable diapers that came with their dolls were finished off. Most of the non-cloth doll diapers aren't reusable and even when parents have the resources to keep buying new doll diapers they aren't always easy to find the size that fits your child's doll.

It is a more practical solution if I'm donating dolls to give parents a resource that doesn't need to be replaced. There are lots of free patterns that can be adapted to different sized dolls if your child wants diapers to dress the dolls and you don't want to keep investing in disposable ones.