Snowman

I'd hoped to finish more of the Christmas themed ami's from the Christmas Ami's set. I finished the penguin and the snowman this year. There is always next year. You can purchase the set here.

This was the last project that made it into the Christmas box. I realized as I looked at the calendar I had to ship to have any hope of getting the package there before Christmas.

Gingerbread Man and House

You may recognize the style of this Gingerbread Man and his house if you follow this blog. It is by the same designer as the Dragon in the Castle. You can purchase the pattern here.

This is the most decorative of her patterns I've made to date. In some places I did use buttons instead of embrodiery. I've commented several times that while I can embrodier on cloth I find embrodiering on yarn to be a much bigger challenge and where possible I find alternatives. I will say I loved her directions for making the candy canes. It was an easy and really amazing effect that I can see using again. Her directions for surface crohcet were the best I've encountered to date as well. All and all I learned quite a few useful techniques that I'll be able to apply to other projects.

This was almost the last gift to go out in the Christmas box. There is always the temptation to put one more item in the box.

Lots to Love 8 Inch Elf

I've been building my collection of 8 inch Lots to Love dolls dressed with crocheted holiday outfits. I always mistakenly think I can get more than one made per holiday, but the up side is that I have something to look forward to making next year if my back order of dolls ever gets shipped.

This outfit was made from Annie Potter's Holiday Babies available here.

These patterns call for sports yarn but I used worsted weight yarn and a D hook for the pants and the shirt. I used an e hook for the first row of the hat because it was too tight and then switched back to a D hook. It was a little loose with the e hook but again with the D it wouldn't fit over the head so it was an interesting call to make.

In other notes I added rows to the top of the pants to make them fit a little better before moving to the legs. I made 6 chains instead of 4 to split the legs. I also made adjustments to the arms. I used a heart button instead of crocheting one. I played a little with the shoes to get them to fit the feet. Doll feet are always interesting as patterns have to be adjusted to the way your doll's feet are constructed and that's what I ended up doing.