Ken A Nip in the Air

I found a binder of the Annie's Fashion Doll Collection patterns I'd been hunting for and promised myself I'd start working on the patterns that fit the donation this year. I've started and its been an interesting journey so far. This is the first Ken pattern I've worked on and there were some interesting challenges.

Hook sizes and fiber are always a starting place with older projects as what is listed isn't always available. In this case the older hook sizes have to be translated to modern mm thread hook sizes. A size 7 for instance isn't as helpful as it might have been when these projects were written.

One challenge I've found recently has been finding shades of thread for these projects. In this case I needed size 5 dark grey thread for Ken's pants. Grey is a challenging color at best but dark grey is even harder. My options for size 5 thread were limited to begin with but my amazing husband stumbled upon size 5 Pearl thread in the embrodiery section of Michael's. I had no idea if it would work but I had him bring home 7 skeins as I knew I'd need a significant amount to finish the pants with the smaller sized options.

Notes:

Trousers:

To my very happy surprise the thread made gauge and was easy to use with a crochet hook once I rolled it into a ball. I used a b hook for these pants. I'd consider going slightly smaller as the waist ended up larger than was helpful despite making guage. I would sew the belt shut and add the buckle after the fact next time. The pants should fit snugger than mine but I suspect they still can slide on and off. There is a snap on the pants to close them and I'd keep that but the two snaps are bulky and don't sit well together.

I needed 5 skeins of the size 5 Pearl thread to complete the pants for future reference.

I will need to reduce the wasit size the next time I make these pants either through using a smaller hook or reducing stitches.

I only needed 46 of the original 56 rows of the pants for this doll.

Sweater:

I believe this was made with size 10 Thread Art. I used a 1.8mm thread crochet hook. The original sweater, hat and mittens were made with red but it had a real Christmas feel to it. I wanted an outfit that would last through the fall and winter season as I don't tend to make many donation outfits for Ken.

I followed the body of the sweater as written. In the future I would make the sweater a little longer so it tucks better into the pants. I did have to change the arms as I found the arms as written to be huge.

Arms to row 21

Skip to row 27 completing 27-28

Skip to 34 completing 35-35

Skip to 38 completing 38-29

Repeat 39 to row 42

Mittens:

This was a different style of mittens than I've made before but they worked using a size 1.5mm hook.

Hat:

The hat was also made with 1.8mm thread hook with size 10 thread I used for the sweater and mittens. The white is Aunt Lydia's size 10.