16 Inch Baby Doll Dress, Hat, and Shoes

In looking at my donation post I realized I needed more outfits for the JC Toys - 16-inch Baby Doll and decided to get to work on the task. This is a free crochet pattern from Linmary Knits designed for a 14 inch doll but I've used it for the 16 inch dolls for some time. You can find the pattern here.

One of the things I love about working on this pattern are the different textures it features. There is a lovely flow to it as you work on the dress.

I used Bernat Baby yarn for this dress with a G hook. The hat called for a smaller hook and I missed it and continued on with the G hook. When I make the second one for the other donation doll I'll want to remember to use the smaller hook for the hat.

I used my favorite free shoe pattern to add shoes to the outfit. They are part of the Peachy Keen free pattern found here. The shoes require worsted weight 4 yarn and an I hook.

Drop Waist Baby Doll Gown

I didn't precisely set out to change this pattern into a drop waist dress, but I did want the top of the dress to be longer before I started the skirt based on my experience from making the first dress. I actually kind of like the look of this dress. When I attempt this again I might make the top a little shorter but I'd still stick with the dropped waist. I rather like how it looks.

For those of you interested in making doll clothes you can find a free pattern for the dress and hat here. The shoes are from another free pattern set Peachy Keen found here. Since they fit the JC Toys, La Baby 16-inch Pink Dollwith minimal challenges it has become my pattern of choice. I use an I hook to get the shoes to fit and I add a couple of chains to the strap and the shoes fit easily. I've tried several other patterns with varied success. I also find the strap helps keep the shoes on. Even when I can find a pattern that fits, the shoes still don't always stay on the feet.

This project helped me with my mission to wipe out the orphan yarn in my stash. This is another ball of sport baby yarn that thankfully is much smaller than the yellow ball. I've used it on several other projects over the years, but it takes a while to finish one off. I think I still at least one more doll project left before I can declare this ball finished.

Some notes for myself I used an I hook with the sport yarn to make the outfit fit the doll. I used a snap as a closure the fist time I made this outfit this year. This time I made the dress in the round allowing it to be slid on and off and it works fine. I would do that in the future as it is simple to make and for the child to dress the doll.

I write this during the last days of January and I can see my stash of baby doll clothes growing for the doll donation. I'm hopeful in February to have enough of a supply that I can start to turn to the 18 inch dolls and continue on my holiday boxes going out to family.

Baby Doll Yellow Daisy Dress

I'm continuing on my mission to use up orphan skeins of yarn in my stash. This yellow is part of one of those huge balls of sport baby yarn. This is the second doll dress I've made from it and I swear you can barely notice a dent in it. I'm determined not to surrender though. I will eventually finish it off.

This is a fun easy free doll pattern found here. In order to make this fit the JC Toys, La Baby 16-inch Pink Dollusing sport yarn instead of worsted weight I used an I hook.

This pattern does not include shoes. It's taken me a while to find a pattern that fits and I keep going back to the shoes from the free pattern Peachy Keen found here.

The pattern uses velcro to join the back. It had been a while since I'd made this particular pattern and I never use Velcro because I find it hard to sew. I used a snap closure for dress but when I make the second one the dress is loose enough I believe I will just close the seem, add the staps and not worry about creating a closure. It should slide on easily and save me the hassle of buttons or snaps.

I'm writing this at the end of January and I feel like I'm making a good start to getting these dolls dressed for the donation due at the end of November beginning of December. The baby dolls tend to get neglected as I find the 18 inch doll clothes a bit more fun and creative to make. However, this year I'm sticking to my promise to focus on getting the baby dolls dressed before moving on to the 18 inch dolls.

Baby Doll Dress and Hat

While I've been busy working on the holiday boxes I am trying to keep my focus on the doll donation project as well.

This is a free pattern crochet pattern available from Linmary Knits available here.

You may recognize the pattern as I previously used this pattern to make the Red Riding Hood dress. I love patterns that don't require buttons or snaps so I was determined to add this to the doll donation this year. I plan on making a second one so each donation doll will have one.

For my own notes I needed used an e hook for the dress. While this was a great chance to finish off a skein of Bernat Super Saver I had left over from holiday projects at some point I do think I'd like to experiment with doing this pattern in sport yarn. I just think the worsted weight is a little heavy. However, right now I need to work from my stash. I ended up using an I hook for the shoes.

The shoes are not included in this pattern but are from another free pattern Peachy Keen found here.

Baby Doll Sundress and Hat

This is one of my favorite patterns to make for baby dolls. It works up quickly and little ones find it easy to dress and undress the doll without pesky buttons, snaps, or hooks. As of this writing the pattern is still available on the Wayback machine here. The pattern adapts fairly easily for different doll sizes depending on the hook and yarn size. The pattern was written for a 14" doll and I've made it for 15 and 16" dolls.

This gift is coming along nicely.

Trina 16 Inch Baby Doll Dress

As I mentioned earlier I've been adapting a variety of patterns to fit my 16 inch doll project to get a wider variety of patterns. I saw this free pattern here and decided to see what I could do to make it fit the 16" baby doll. As written the pattern is too small so I frogged it and based on previous experience I used worsted weight yarn and and I hook to get the size I needed.

Additional notes for myself:

I changed rows 6 and 7 to increase rows following the established pattern. I did begin the back stitches in row 8 as prescribed. I used ties for this dress rather than a button. I just found it easier for my purposes.

16 Inch Doll Sundress and Hat

As I've mentioned before there aren't tons of patterns that fit the soft bodied 16 inch baby dolls although I do keep finding new ones all the time. Since I donate two dolls a year I do often make multiple outfits from the same patterns. This was the second dress I made from this pattern here.

Notes to myself:

I played with the hat by reducing the increases and I like the look of it much better.

Baby Doll Dress for 16 Inch Doll

While I enjoy playing with new patterns and learning new stitches I always appreciate simple easy to make patterns that can fill my donation bags for the dolls. I love it even better when I can take a pattern for one doll and adapt it to another. This baby doll dress is adapted from the free 18 inch free Flamenco Dress pattern found here.

The main changes I made to accommodate the body of the doll were an H hook for the top of the doll and an I hook for the skirt. It just made for a better fit. Using the I hook I needed to reduce the number of rows for the skirt section of the pattern.

I went through several versions of the 15" doll before moving on to the 16" doll as each version became unavailable. I like having model dolls to try the clothes on to make sure they will fit the new donation dolls so I try to keep up with dolls I can find for the next donation year. My current favorite doll is JC Toys La Baby 16-inch Washable Soft Body Purple Play Doll that I found when the last of the 15 inch dolls were no longer available. The features on this doll are a bit nicer and I'm finding with a little work many of the 15" patterns do adapt to the 16" doll.

This is Walmart's Mainstay Acrylic Yarn. I had never seen it before and there was only one skein. It just seemed like a fun silly color for a baby doll dress and I enjoyed both the softness of the yarn and the color as it worked up.