Baby Doll Pilgrim

The Big Sister Doll Project was sent out in the middle of October shortly before the litle girl became a big sister. I loved this project. It got me crocheting again and I had a wonderful time exploring baby doll outfits.

It got me motivated to complete more 18" doll outfits to send off to the donation project. After I'm done posting about the baby doll project I'll hopefully get those posted.

The down side was I haven't posted anything from the project. So it is time to get caught up. Since November has arrived I thought I'd start with a Thanksgiving theme. I've been making this outfit for the 18" doll for years. I'm hoping I can make a holiday outfit for each of the holiday's and get it sent off for the baby doll. In this first batch I sent off the Halloween costume and the Thanksgiving Pilgrim outfit. I recently finished off the Christmas outfit. I'm not sure if I'll have time for a traditional holiday dress. We will see.

On to this outfit however. I've been using Darski's We Gather Together free pattern found here for years to make my 18 inch doll Thanksgiving outfit. I've made my own bonnet for years but never written a pattern. For this project adapting the dress pattern wasn't too difficult as I use a 16 inch baby doll so it required just a little adaptation to change it from an 18 inch doll pattern to a baby doll outfit. The biggest challenge was making sure the outfit wasn't too large, the arms too wide or too long. The apron had to be adjusted to the size of the doll.

When it came time to make the bonnet for the baby doll however I was able to borrow from another Darski free pattern. I used the bonnet for the Christening gown found in her Sweet Baby Mine pattern set found here. Again these patterns weren't written for 16 inch baby dolls but for 14 inch baby dolls. However when you've been making doll clothes for a bit you learn to adapt, especially with baby dolls. Rarely do you find someone who had the exact same doll as you. You crochet for a bit try it on and see how it fits. In this case I changed the bonnet edging.

I love this pattern set and you will see more from it later. The blanket from this set has become a travel project or my I'm just to tired to think project at night. When I finish it that will go into the holiday donation drive. The extra doll blankets get distributed to dolls and stuffed animals that come into the donation without their own blankets. We make sure all the dolls we donate go out with their own hand made blanket thanks mostly to the hard work of friends at Crochetville.