I Feel Pretty 16 Inch Baby Doll Crochet Dress

I know I said I was done with the 16 inch doll for this donation season and I was or so I thought. A dear friend who designs doll clothes posted she had a free baby doll pattern she wanted me to try out and how could I resist. I checked my stash and got to work. This is the first one. I will be making a second as I'm trying to keep the baby doll donation even this year. You can find the free pattern here.

I used the Nicole Sport weight yarn I purchased from AC Moore before they departed. Yes I do have quite a large stash as it was the only local yarn I could find to use on the 8 and 10 inch dolls. Now that I'm stuck indoors I'm more glad then ever I bought what I did.

The pattern called for a mixture of a 4.5 and 5 hook. With this yarn and my odd gauge I needed the H hook to get the bodice to fit, I also added rows to the skirt as it ended up not covering the legs. This doll looks like it's wearing a white onsie so I try to cover it up when I make doll clothes. The doll in the pattern was fully covered so it could be that it was a 15 inch doll, it could be the yarn I used, or again I often have a funky gauge that requires me to alter things to make them fit.

I'm looking forward to making the second one after I finish my first 18 inch doll project of the season. I'm working on a dress pattern I've not tried before for an Our Generation Doll. I've moved on from the Springfield dolls this year and from here on I've decided it will be the Walmart or the Target dolls depending on which dolls are on sale first. This year it was the Our Generation dolls. If I find the Walmart dolls any time this year I will pick them up as I really do like working with the dolls. They are a bit more flexible than the Our Generation dolls for sizing clothes.

Post Stitch Baby Doll Afghan

Every year I promise myself I'll do something about the ever growing and aging stash of yarn in my spare bedroom. I do get rid of some of it every year but at the end of the year I realize I haven't done as well as I need to to make any real dent in the problem. During the Christmas break I started targeting yarn that could be used up on specific projects. I had these huge round balls of baby sport yarn I'd bought years ago thinking I could use them for Barbie projects. When they didn't work out they got boxed and pulled out occasionally for small projects but it takes quite a bit to "finish off" one of these huge balls.

So I began putting them to use. I made one doll blanket and still had what I thought was sufficient yarn for a second. That turned out to be overalls optimistic. I started out making the Post Stitch pattern from Annabelle's Doll Afghans patterns which can be purchased here. The pattern does call for white trim, but I needed to also add white and start using up and orphan skein of vareigated baby yarn for trim in order to finish it all off. I rather like this blanket and it was a great way to clean out some yarn that needed to go. It is also one more blanket done for the donation finished before the New Year even had begun.

Yellow Baby Doll Dress

Every year I promise myself that I will attack my stash yarn. As I write this in January, I feel like I'm already making a bigger impact on that goal than I have in previous years because I'm digging in to yarn that has been living here far too long.

I mentioned in a previous post about this pattern that I wanted to experiment with making this pattern with sport yarn, but didn't want to buy any. So I went digging to see what I had on hand. This dress was a product of that goal. I found one of those big balls of baby sport yarn and found a matching Bernat Satin to use as trim. I'm going to continue to look for patterns to use up the yellow ball along with the endless purple I've got on hand.

Notes to myself. I started out following the pattern directions but the dress was too tight using the e hook. I ended up needing a g hook to make this fit using sport weight yarn. With the g it is loose enough for little hands to take the dress off on and off easily as it has no buttons or snaps and one must be able to pull it on and off. While this is a plus for me because I don't have to sew buttons, it does require a balance to make it loose enough to allow it to slip on and off but not so big that it hangs off the doll. I think I accomplished that by going to the g hook.

I used two free patterns to make this outfit. The dress and hat are from Linmary Knits here. The shoes are also from a free pattern set Peachy Keen available here.

The shoes are a darker color as I needed to make them from worsted weight and this is the lightest yellow I have on hand. I need an I hook to make these shoes fit the doll.

Doll Diaper Bag Items

Twas the Week before Christmas...

I mentioned in the doll diaper post, I was concerned when I did inventory before dropping off the 2019 doll donation that I hadn't finished all the baby doll items that I needed for the donation. This motivated me to start with them this year. I wanted these items done and out of the way before moving on to the bigger items like the doll carriers and the clothing for the donation.

I was quite excited to find that the baby dolls I ordered for the 2020 donation come with magic disappearing liquid bottles so no need to crochet bottles this year. Just one less item for me to add to my crochet list.

For those of you interested in the patterns, the bib is a quick and easy free pattern found here. One of the challenges with working with baby dolls is few people are writing for your specific baby doll so I'm used to adapting to fit the doll. To fit the JC Toys, La Baby 16-inch Pink I have to chain 16 to start and do 20 rows before doing the shaping row. When I get to the shaping row, I do the shaping at both ends and ss until I get to the shaping stitches described in the smaller pattern. I hope this helps for anyone trying to adapt to their doll. It is a great deal about trial and error to get stuff to fit the different sized dolls.

The wipes and the changing pads are available as part of set to purchase here. I love the ability to add creative play items to the donation every year.

Doll Blanket

I've been reading lots of posts lately about crocheting in public or do you take your crocheting with you. Well I do. I'm not good at waiting with nothing to do. I will sometimes bring a book or my Kindle to read, but depending on what I'm waiting for I can find it hard to concentrate on reading. I do find simple crochet projects work well during these times.

The challenge is sometimes I'm working on projects that don't "travel" well. Sometimes it's because the project needs to be fitted to a doll. I won't travel with a doll. They are heavy, awkward to manage in public, and let's be honest it just draws unnecessary attention. Sometimes I'm working on projects that need to be sewn together and that isn't something I enjoy doing when I might have to stop unexpectedly to move. I also can't count on having a place to lay out complicated directions so having a project with fairly simple directions and repeats is an ideal travel project.

Last fall when I was working on the Big Sister project I came across a perfect project that met my needs. The Little Angel Layette had an accompanying blanket which I didn't need for the Big Sister project as I'd already made a blanket for the doll. However, the pattern was perfect for my travel requirements. At the time I started this the fall I didn't have any projects on my hooks suitable for travel. I needed something I could take with me that would be simple to work and made me feel I was accomplishing something while I was dealing with wait times.

The day before an appointment in the middle of December I pulled this out and measured it against an 18" doll and realized it had reached the length I needed for it to be included in the doll donation. I finished it off. I was working on a doll changing pad at the time so that met the requirements for a simple travel project. I didn't start another doll blanket right away but there will be another one there soon I'm sure as it is nice to have a project with no deadline.

Technically I could have pushed and finished this blanket for the 2019 donation but I had plenty of blankets for the 2019 donation and this gave me a low pressure project finished for 2020. I've enjoyed having a project that doesn't have a deadline. I worked on it only when I was "traveling" and left it alone when I was home until it was time to finish it off.