My Life Birthstone

Again still not out of April but moving deeper into May as I prepost. Not a bad challenge to have as summer approaches and more things take up time.

This is another one of Darski's free patterns found here.

The shoes are from Sweet Silver Creation's Sailor pattern that can be purchased here.

Notes:

I'll start with the pants. Unless I'm making footed pj's for the baby dolls for the most part I just make pants from the top down regardless of what the pattern says. There have been a few exceptions where the pants required something specific but when possible I don't. I find creating the legs and joining to be a frustrating process. I'm sure it technically is better but I've finally decided a finished wearable pair of doll pants is better than an unfished technically correct pair.

So with that in mind I followed Darski's directions for the upper part of the outfit but went my own way with the pants. I buy hair elastics and sc over them. I then dc until I split for legs by chaining 3 and dividing the legs evenly. I then decrease the legs as they can be wide. I generally finish with a ss "seam" as this tends to keep the stitches from catching as the pants are taken on and off.

This is Red Heart Super Saver Blue Wave and I only got two skeins of it when I stumbled upon it at Walmart. I liked it because it was between Royal and Navy and I knew I'd have projects that would work with this yarn. Sadly when I went to look for more it looks like they are no longer making this color.

It takes almost a full skein of Super Saver to finish this outfit along with additional white for trim.

Sweater:

I used an H hook for the sweater as suggested.

The sweater seemed short so I added some rows for length which meant adding rows to the cape to get the length pictured in the pattern.

This is a nice top and I would add it to the rotation with the cape for future donations.

Cape:

I used an extended dc rather than the hdc that Darski suggested. I tried the hdc and it didn't work for me.

As stated above I needed to add rows to the cape to cover the rows I added to the sweater to get it to fit.

Hat:

The hat was a happy mistake. I thought about pulling it out and starting again but I liked the way it looked despite it not being the match to the pattern picture.

Shoes:

This is my standard strap shoe pattern but having read my notes from the Madison project I did use a g hook and the fit was better.

Our Generation Elspeth

Still not quite to the end of April yet but edging closer as I prepost my projects.

This is another of Darski's free patterns that can be found here. The shoes are from Sweet Silver Creations School Girl pattern which can be purchased here.

Notes:

The main yarn for this dress was Red Heart Super Saver Saffron. The pattern called for an I hook but the dress is slightly larger than I'd like but having played with these patterns lately I suspect the H hook would be too small to get the dress to close for me.

The white trim is Baby Bernat Sport the hat Red Heart Super Saver. The Green is also Red Heart Spring Green left over from the Madison and Rivulet outfits. I used an f hook for the shoes but I'd go with an e next time as this yarn is heavier than the grey yarn I used for the last shoes and they were big.

My Life Arabella

As I'm writing this we are finally heading into the last week of April. My preposts are starting to catch up as my projects are a little more involved and take a bit longer to finish.

This is one of Darski's free patterns that can be found here. The shoes are from Sweet Silver Creation's School Uniform pattern that can be purchased here.

I needed a break from some of my smaller hook work and decided a stroll through Darski's patterns would be a good break. I had not made the Arabella pattern before. Some of Darksi's patterns work up easily for me and others feel like we are not communicating clearly. This sadly was the latter. I kept on and finished it. I took pictures in case I want to tackle it again at some point but I don't see this becoming a regular pattern.

I started with an I hook for the top section of the dress but it was huge. Thinking this was my problem I used an H hook as the top section is worked from the waist up. Then however the top was still too large in the bodice and the waist too small. This was a sign I was going to be making lots of changes.

I went back to the I hook for the dress and started reducing stitches once I was sure I had the waist wide enough for the doll. I didn't record all the reductions but I did finally get the top not to be off the shoulder.

The dress skirt was not an issue at all and worked up as written. I lenghtened the chains for the white trim at the neck in order to get the trim to weave through. It was short as written.

I used the suggested H hook for the bonnet. I likely should have used an I. The bonnet was not what I'd hoped for based on the pattern pictures. I had to add chains to the red trim to get it to fit and it was narrow so I added a row.

One of the reasons this dress has been on my radar for so long is the Spenser jacket. It gives the dress a historical feel.

It starts as a shrug working into a jacket and I found it was hard to fit. I pulled out the front panels a couple of times as they needed to be moved so the arms weren't trapped. There are pictures but the places I needed more help were the areas that had no pictures and the directions seemed a little mysterious for me. I have come back to projects after working on something else and suddenly they make sense which is why I took so many pictures because I haven't given up hope that this might make more sense with another try.

The shoes thankfully were easy with a size g hook.

The yarn for this was Big Twist I believe Teal. The Green and White were both Red Heart Super Saver. I'm glad I stuck with it and it does give another historical piece to the donation.