16 Inch Baby Doll Dress, Hat, and Shoes

In previous years I've resisted having to repeat patterns. As I return to this project I find myself instead attracted to finding ways to make the same pattern fit as many dolls as possible once I've found success with it. Sometimes our habits change.

The dress and hat are from a Petite Designs Patterns that can be purchased here. The shoes are one part of one of Darski's free patterns that can be found here.

After finishing this pattern for the Rag Doll I tried it on the 16 Inch Baby doll to see if it would work. It was a little large in the top so I kept with the baby yarn and moved to an H hook and the fit was good. I realized after posting this to the ongoing completed post that this is the same yarn I used for the bathing suit.

Baby Isabella

I'm always looking for doll crochet patterns that can be adapted to fit theJC Toys, La Baby 16-inch Pink Doll to give me more variety in the donations I can make.

I purchased the Baby Isabella pattern at Mary Maxim here. Lots to Love Babies 14 inch Baby Dollis the doll used in the original pattern but I thought I'd give it a try.

Notes:

The pattern calls for baby yarn I used worsted weight and increased from a D to an H hook. I think if I try this pattern again I'd try a lighter yarn with a larger hook to make it fit. The worsted yarn is a little bulky for this pattern. I switched from an H to a G hook for the skirt which helped but it was still bulky.

The bonnet actually fit using a g hook and the pattern as described with the worsted weight yarn.

I did not use the shoe pattern as this doll's feet are hard to fit so I went back to Peechy Keen for the shoes a free pattern that can be found here. Not sure what was up with my gauge when I was making these but I had to go up to a J hook to make them fit. I note this because yesterday I want looking to see if I had any notes on hook size regarding these and couldn't find any, so now I know at least at one point I did need to go up from an I to a J.

I love the texture of this pattern. It is a unique stitch style I hadn't tried before and I like the outcome. I'd like to experiment with it again.

Baby Nicole

Another outfit from operation Big Sister. This one is from the Mary Maxim pattern Baby Nicole that can be purchased here.

Mary Maxim has been releasing more of their kit patterns as digital patterns. They regularly are on sale for $.99 so I generally wait for the sale to stock up on any new releases I don't currently own. I believe I originally picked this up as a kit when I first started doing the doll donations. I got a doll and an outfit to make and it worked out for me. I later moved on to the soft baby dolls and later the doll moved up in size when the 15 inch soft dolls were no longer available.

However as I've mentioned in previous posts, most patterns adapt and as long as you keep trying the outfits on for fit you can usually make things work as long as the change isn't too great.

While I've had some success with the 18 inch dolls and crocheted shoes the baby doll has been a bit more stubborn about shoes. I don't know if it is the shape of the feet but I find most of the doll bootie patterns seem just to fall off which is why the doll is constantly bare foot in most pictures.