Lots to Love 8 Inch Doll Candie Corn Halloween Costume

I'm continuing my tradition of making costumes for the Lots to Love 8 Inch dolls to decorate for the holidays. I made a Pumpkin Kitty last year and this year I decided to adapt a pattern from an old Crochet Calendar for the 5 inch baby dolls from Michelle Crean called Candie Corn Doll.

I always separate out the patterns into my category binders so I don't know what year of the Daily Crochet calendar this was from but it was the October 24th and 25th entry for year. I've checked Michelle Crean's website and this is not one of the patterns she lists for sale. If I do find it I will add the link for those who might be interested in the pattern.

To make this fit the 8 inch Lots to Love doll instead of the 5 inch doll I used a g hook and I Love this Yarn Sport Weight Yarn in Orange and White along with a discontinued yellow from Red Heart Sport.

Note to myself the booties fit really well and could easily be adapted for another pattern that comes without shoes.

Lots to Love 8 Inch Pilgrim Boy

While I've primarily been working on Thanksgiving projects to mail out, I have made a few items for my own house.

This is the fourth doll I've completed for my holiday Lots to Love 8 Inch dolls.

This time I used an out of print House of White Birches leaflet Holiday Baby Dolls pattern number 101102. Sadly this one hasn't been made available as a digital pattern yet in any location I could find.

As they published more patterns for these dolls I am hoping at some point they are released as I'd love to have copies of them.

While they are designed for a specific 9 1/2 inch baby doll with work this outfit fit the Lots to Love 8 inch doll. The Lots to Love have a generous stomach and when working with patterns one has to work around that.

For this outfit that meant using worsted weight yarn for the pants and the jacket. I added chains until the chain reached around the baby's waist. The original pattern was not large enough to accomadate the wider stomach of the Lots to Love doll even though the doll in the pattern is technically a larger doll. Measurements are everything. The body of the jacket fit well using worsted weight acrylic yarn, but I had to shorten the sleeves only doing the first 2 rows of the sleeve before doing the reducing rows.

The collar, sleeve cuffs and belt required a lighter yarn, so I used Omega Sinfonia cotton sport yarn for those items. They were too heavy made in acrylic. I knew going in I was going to use sport yarn for the collar and the cuffs. I tried the belt with worsted acrylic and determined it was too bulky for the doll.

I love these shoes. Each of these dolls has slightly different shaped feet so you never quite know how the shoes will fit. This is probably the most pointy toed doll I've worked with to date and the shoes fit perfectly. Unlike the hat which was constantly falling off while I was working on the doll, I was pleasantly surprised with how well the shoes stayed on the doll even when moving it around.

This holiday doll project has been fun and one I plan on continuing into next year. Time to order more dolls!!!

Lots to Love 8 Inch Doll Patriotic Outfit

Back at Easter I started making holiday outfits for the 8 inch dolls for my own decorations. While I know the Memorial Day and July 4th celebrations may be some what quieter this year, I wanted something new to add to my own decorations to make sure the days didn't pass without recognition. So, I made myself the July 4th outfit from Annie Potter's Holiday Babies pattern booklet available for purchase here or digitally at Etsy here.

I started looking for appropriate yarn to make the July 4th outfit hoping to have it for Memorial Day. I ran across a clearance sale of Red Heart Sport yarn at Mary Maxim. This was important because baby yarn is often the best weight for these projects but the colors are quite limited. You can find sport yarn but not always in larger quantities for the non-baby colors. The only challenge for this was I couldn't get navy which the pattern called for but I still like it with the lighter blue. I also prefer the darker red to the red in the pattern.

For my own notes I made the bodice longer than the pattern called for and while I would do that again perhaps not quite as long. I added length to the skirt as I reduced the stitches to match the number of stitches on the bodice to make stitching the 2 together easier. As a result I could have made the bodice shorter. These panties are a really easy pattern for the 8 inch doll and would be worth making for some of the other doll patterns where needed. The booties also fit well without having to make adjustments. I used an e hook for this project although it called for a 0.