Pancake

I'm continuing to add breakfast items for the Valentine box. For years I've used the flatter pancake pattern found in Tasty Crochet: A Pantry Full of Patterns for 33 Tasty Treatsit makes a nice flat pancake pattern. My personal preference has always been for nice fluffy pancakes so I decided to try the pattern in Kawaii Crochetleaving out the facial features to make it more of a traditional play food.

These are designed to be small projects and to make mine larger I made mine from worsted weight yarn with a g hook. This gave me the size I wanted but they did end up slightly fluffier than I wanted. There are always trade offs. Next time I'd make the syrup with a smaller hook.

Along with Valentine's books I found Eric Carle's Pancakes, Pancakes!to send along with the breakfast food.

One thing I loved about this pattern is it is made in one piece, no joining. That being said I am strongly considering returning to my flatter pancakes only because these are just too tall if I make them play set size. Something to think about for another day.

Lil Cutesies Picnic

I'm finally getting to make the first outfit of the year for Lil Cutesies Doll.I love to make play sets when I can to add a little something to the dolls and this picnic set meets that goal. You can purchase the pattern at Mary Maxim here.

The theme for this set is a teddy bear picnic and I did make the bears last year. While I love a play set I spent a good bit of time working on the bears last year and it just didn't seem like a great investment of time. I suspect the child who receives the doll will find other characters to invite to her doll's picnic if so desired.

This again was a good chance to target some yarn I've uncovered when I was sorting through and putting my yarn into crates. I'd bought what I could of AC Moore's house brand Nicole's Stitch Studio Storybook Fanfare sport yarn before they closed. Then it got buried in my stash for a bit and when I was cleaning I realized I needed to target it on doll projects this year and bid it a fond farewell. This yarn has the feel of Caron Simply Soft which has its pros and cons. What I will miss most about this yarn is it was a cheap locally available sport yarn. I didn't have to order it online. That being said since COVID hit I've ordered everything online, but in the old days it was nice being able to find what I wanted locally.

In case I do have any left over when I approach this project again I required an H hook to make the dress fit. The pattern calls for an F hook and Mary Maxim's Baby's Best yarn which is a 2 fine weight but with my f hook and 3 sport weight I found the dress was tight in the back and wouldn't close so I frogged and moved up to an H. I used a different yarn from last year so those notes weren't as helpful. These will give me a starting point for comparison next year

Another note for myself that I didn't make last year is that I didn't follow the blanket pattern. Mine is a simple seed stitch blanket. The blanket pattern here I believe is a Corner to Corner which I have yet to master. It is on my to do but not something worth not finishing a doll project over when the seed picnic blanket works just as niceley. For my own notes the edging is a sc chain 3 for with a sc chain 3 sc in each corner. The second row of the edging is dc chain 2 dc in corner, chain 1 dc 2 in each chain space. I ended up trying to recreate this so this time I'm documenting it for future reference.

16 Inch Baby Doll Diapers

One of the projects I try to knock off early in the doll donation project each year are the diaper bag items. I need a total of 4 diapers for the 2 JC Toys 16-inch Medium Soft Body Baby Doll La Baby I donate every year so it feels good to get them off my to do list. I try to make a couple in between other projects to keep them from becoming a tedious exercise.

This is a free pattern still available through the Wayback machine here. I have a supply of yarn that was gifted to me and I've been working through it for years. It is a variety an older brands of acrylic and all in various shades of off white. I've been using it primarily for the diapers for the last few years and I would like to believe I'm starting to make a dent. I have enough to finish this years diapers. It is a blessing to be able to make them without needing to buy yarn.

A note to myself for the next set. I followed my notes on the pattern which list a K hook. I'm using my new Ergonomic hooks and found the diapers were a little looser than normal. I read a previous posting about using an I hook and I'll experiment with that as it might have to do with the stretchiness of this yarn. It might need a smaller hook. I will change my notes to reflect the hook size on the pattern as well as noting them on the blog after I make the next set. I continue to use snaps with this pattern.

I did find Melissa & Doug Baby Food & Bottle Seton sale and I was able to purchase 3 sets so the 2 16 inch dolls and the JC Toys, Lots to Love Babies 14 inches Baby Doll will all have one as part of their donation. While bottles are easy enough to crochet, the plates and baby food jars are not as easy to make so the feeding kit makes it a more complete set to donate.