My Life Hearts and Flowers

This is one of the first Valentine's outfits I make each year. It is a free Darski pattern that can be found here.

Notes:

I use a K hook for the first 4 rows of this dress as with my odd guage it is the only way I can get the dress to slide on and off. I use an I hook for the rest of the this pattern. I used an H for the the shoes. I returned to row 9 using an I and reduced last sc row of top.

Reminder to join all rows. I have made this dress so many times but for some reason I missed this one this year so when I make a mistake I add a note.

Stop when you finish row 9 and return to row 1. (I do a sc reduction row after row 9 but usually at the end after I've tried on the dress for fit.) Row 1 is the waist line not the top. Row 9 is the completed top not the waist. Return to Row 1 and start Row 10 to complete the skirt portion of the dress. I didn't read this note from last year and paniced when I needed the reduction row but I added it and all was well.

Another new note for this year is to read directions for Heart Cluster on first page. I ended up with a different path that worked but oddly reading directions works.

I use a different strategy for the flower and the rose joining. I changed the design to have the dress tie at the neck and use the flower to attach the tie at the front so it covers the attachment. This just works for me.

The shoes are from Sweet Silver Creations Sailor pattern that can be purchased here. I used an H hook as I had previously for the My Life Doll but when I make these again I would use a G hook. Gauge can be funny. These were a bit larger than I had hoped.

American Girl Yoke Skirt and T-Shirt

Today's post is an example of why just storing links is not enough you need to download and store the patterns safely or have printed copies before the links disappear. Even with recovery links, they only last a little while when they disappear.

The Yoke skirt pattern was one of the early patterns I downloaded from ABC knitting's crochet patterns for the 18 Inch dolls. At least for the moment you can still find the pattern here. It's been sitting in my 18" doll binder for years but sadly I'd never made it.

This year I was playing with gauge trying to figure out how to master the t-shirt from the free Red Heart Summertime Frills pattern found here when I decided to make a sample with yarn I wasn't as concerned about destroying. I played with it a few times and liked the look. Having finished the shirt, I realized it wasn't the right color for the Red Heart outfit, so I needed something for the bottom. I had some Navy yarn I wanted to finish off and remembered the Yoke skirt pattern. Thus again out of my practice was born another outfit.

The Yoke skirt actually brought me back to my own Jr. High School days. I've not seen a wrap skirt for the 18" dolls at least in crochet. They were all the rage during my Jr. High school days although ours were cloth and had cloth ties instead of buttons. I had almost forgotten the fashion until I started working on the outfit and trying to figure out how the skirt was supposed to be joined. As I looked more closely at the pattern I came to realize it wasn't going to be joined in the traditional sense, but was more like the wrapped skirts of my youth.