16 Inch Baby Doll Shell Stitch Dress

While I've revisted old favorites this year I've been pleased to venture into new territory for the JC 16 Inch Baby Doll this year. It keeps it interesting to try new things each year.

This outfit is mostly from the Shell Stitch pattern and cap

pattern found in the out of print House of White Birches black and white newsprint leaflet Baby Doll Fashions to Crochet. It was published in 1981 for anyone who might wish to find a copy.

One thing I've learned with making clothes for baby dolls is the size of the doll is only a starting point when looking at patterns as the pattern rarely tells you more than the length of the doll. This is actually a pattern for an 18 inch baby doll but I had to add to the pattern to get it to fit this doll likely because it is a padded baby doll. I tried it on the Lots to Love 14 inch doll and because it is so chubby it might actually work for the original pattern I changed but not for the changes I needed to make for this doll.

The shoes for this pattern are my go to free pattern you can find here..

Notes:.

Dress:

I used the suggested D hook for this project with Bernat Baby Sport Baby Baby yarn.

Rows 2-4 teach you a pattern for increases for this outfit. The original pattern keeps this going through row 8 I need to go to row 10 before doing the original row 9 to create the arms to have enough length in the bodice..

The shell pattern for this dress is 2dc ch1 2dc. I tried this and the dress was huge. Not at all as pictured. I pulled it out and tried a shell dc ch1 dc and had a better fit.

To cover the white onesie this doll is constructed with I needed to add rows to the skirt. The skirt ends at row 23. I went to row 29 which when you change the row counts becomes row 30 for the whole pattern.

I finished the back up to the neck before doing the trim this allowed for a cleaner back and made putting the snaps on easier. I also did the trim for the arms.

The original dress has a higher waist which I tried when making this outfit for this doll but I found it was harder to fit with the doll's construction so I lengthened the bodice. It is a different look than the original but I rather like it for this doll.

Cap:

The cap is another pattern in this book that I decided needed a rework if I wanted it to fit this doll. The original has dc increases around twice and I found the hat was unshapable afterwards. For my own records this is the cap pattern on page 46. There are directions for multiple dolls.

I used a G hook and used a magic circle and 12 DC. From there I increased by an additional stitch each row until row 9. Row 9 I did a DC 1 decrease 1 around to make a tight fit. Row 10 I turned and dc in the back loops so cap would turn upwards and did one more dc row in this direction and finished off.

Shoes:

I've been trying the shoes with lighter yarn this year and it seems to be working out OK. They still look better with the worsted 4 yarn but they look odd when the shoes tend not to match. I need a J hook with the lighter yarn to get them to fit.