My Life Dress, Hat, and Shoes

As I mentioned in a previous post as we move into fall you will see patterns repeated as I move to get the outfit count up by repeating patterns with a quick finish, high success level to get the donation levels up. You can find the free dress pattern here. The shoes are part of a paid set I've used forever you can purchase here. There is no pattern for the hat as I'm still working out the details before recording it.

This dress is made with Red Heart Stripes Retro again pulled from my stash. I've run out of the yarn suggested for the pattern and I'm stubborn enough not to buy more before reducing my stash on hand.

16 Inch Baby Doll

At a certain point in the year I start to focus on the deadline for completing the doll donations and I start picking some projects that I know can be completed quickly and thus add to the total number of outfits for the dolls. I still will grab a project of interst but overall my goal is on numbers. You may see patterns repeated in the coming weeks.

This is actually a free pattern for the 18" doll that I've been adapting for the 16" doll for several years. You can find it here.

As I mentioned in a previous post guage has been odd so I started with an I hook until I passed the arm holes and then moved to an H hook and the fit was good. The dress was easy to take on and off. I used a snap at the back to close the dress.

The yarn for this project was one I picked up on impulse a while back as I was looking for options for variegated yarn for doll projects. It was a "house" brand but I don't remember where I bought it. I am determined to finish off these purchases and this seemed like a good place to start.

While there is no pattern for the hat, it is something I keep experimenting with hoping to find a version I like before writing down the pattern there is a free pattern for the doll shoes you can find here. This has been my go to shoe pattern for this doll as they are easy to make and they don't fall of the doll once you put them on as some of the others I've tried have done.

My Life Princess Belle

While my guage is never normal every so often it really goes haywire and I've learned to accept and adjust. Normally for an Adoring Doll pattern I go up a hook size but for this pattern I needed an I hook to make the outfit slide on and off. I suspect had the outfit used a snap or button I could have gotten away with an H hook.

For those of you interested this pattern includes a Belle wig. Since this is going as a donation doll that will hopefully see quite a bit of play time and not as a doll that will be displayed I opted not to make the wig.

There is addiitional trim for the bottom of the dress but trim was not with me this round. I think approaching this on a better day I'd work a trim that functioned for me but in this case I left it off.

You purchase the pattern here.

This was another chance to pull yarn from my stash to work on previous project left overs. I have kept with my goal this year of reducing the left overs and turning them into doll clothes.

Glitter Girl Selena Dress

When I wanted to add a doll to the donation this year I went with a Glitter Girl doll because I wanted a different sized doll that I could find crochet patterns close enough to adapt.

After doing some research I discovered that the American Girl Wellie Wishers Doll was fairly close in size to the Glitter Girl doll and when I started practicing with free patterns and found they fit I felt confident in moving on to buying patterns designed for the Wellie Wishers doll.

This pattern is Little Abbee's Selena Dress pattern and can be purchased here.

I used Knit Picks Palette Yarn that I replaced during one of their sales after I finished off my ancient supply making doll clothes. I started with an F hook and switched to an E hook. As I mentioned I've had a weird guage lately and this doll is not terribly forgiving when putting clothes on and off so I wanted to make it an easy fit without looking bulky.

For the closing in the back I went with a snap over buttons.

My Life Dress and Hat Set

Having finished the baby blanket it was time to get back to the doll donation project. It was also time to dig into my left over balls of yarn to see if I could finish off any yarn in the ever growing bags of project left overs. I was able to finish off one ball of pink with this project and make a sizeable dent in a second so this was a great destashing project.

For those of you interested this is one of Petite Creative Designs patterns found here.

This pattern uses UK terms and while I had been able to translate them as I go, it had been a while and I ended up writing the American terms on top of the UK terms in order to avoid mistakes. The pattern calls for DK yarn I used worsted weight acrylic and went up to an I hook. My guage has been odd lately so I've been finding myself with larger hooks. I'd thought with the increase in yarn size I might not need the larger hook but it was not meant to be I guess.

Woodland Friends Baby Blanket

Prior to COVID during one of Mary Maxim's sales I bought some of their crochet baby afghan kits and put them away in a closet thinking at some point I'd need a baby blanket and while I have patterns sometimes getting the yarn to match can be time consuming. I pulled out the Woodland Friends kit found here last Spring and started working on it a few rows at a time. In July I realized finishing for an expected August baby required more commitment so I pushed ahead and finished it and mailed it off.

I ended up using a J hook to make guage for this blanket. I used yarn bobbins that I pick up when I can find them at local craft stores or online when I need those last items to make free shipping. They are stored in a plastic child's pencil box which are really inexpensive to find this time of year if you shop the back to school sales. I have lots of my crochet items stored in those little pencil boxes as they are easy to transport and cheap to buy if you get them in the fall.

This kit uses Mary Maxim's Starlette yarn and I've had mixed experiences with this yarn. The yarn tends to shed and I may have just received a few bad skeins but some of the yarn split making it more challenging to use. I've used Starlette for some of their doll kits and an ami kit and its been fine which is why I mention it could just have been a run of the yarn.

The directions are chart for this pattern were great. Despite my comments about how much easier it is to have the yarn provided I'd prefer to shop for the yarn for this project and find a brand I know won't split.