Skipper Tennis

I mentioned when I wrote about Barbie's tennis outfit that I was working on one for Skipper as well. I finished up the skirt from the 1995 Leisure Arts Fashion Doll Leaflet Vacation Fashion Doll Wardrobe but the top was proving a more difficult fit. I put Skipper aside and finished off some other projects.

After finishig Ken's tennis outfit I decided it was time to take a crack at finishing off Skipper's outfit and made a very simple top alternating HDC and sc rows measuring to make sure the top fit and adding increases and then decreases to make sure the shirt was a good fit. I added chains for the arm holes and then crocheted into the chains into the next row and finished off with crocheting around the ends to finish off the top. I used snaps to close the back of the shirt.

I used the same method I did for Ken's head band I measured the distance around her head, cut 1/8" elastic, sewed it together and then crocheted around the elastic finishing off with a second row of slip stitches.

Barbie Bathing Suit Cover-Up

One of the lessons I've learned since I started back down the road of making Barbie clothes is when I start with a new pattern leaflet try a small item to work out guage before moving on to the more complicated patterns.

Now you might ask why not just use the pattern guage. Well I do that, but I've got two challenges with that. The first is my guage doesn't always match that of the designer. Sometimes I'm spot on and sometimes it feels like we are doing completely different crafts.

The second challenge is more practical. While I am honest about my lack of Barbie expertise, I have learned that Barbie has changed and continues to change in size despite retaining the 11 1/2 inch height. Therefore, when you look at an older publication you don't know precisely which Barbie or other fashion doll those clothes were sized to fit. While I might have a challenge if I had the same doll the designer used in matching gauge. I can guarentee I can't trust the guage will match when working on a modern Barbie. I choose to try a small project before jumping to a larger project. It generally helps me to work out some of the sizing issues before also adding more complicated construction issues.

This pattern comes from Lesiure Arts Vacation Fashion Doll Wardrobe 2716. This was another leaflet that was in my Barbie binder from my last round of doll clothes making that I didn't use because the patterns are all made with crochet thread. While I wasn't able to use them back then, they have proved a wonderful investment for my current projects. I have my own pattern library to pick through to find items to make that I'd never tried before.

This also reminded me of the extra clothes we used to need when visting the less than warm waters of Hampton Beach, NH in the summers of my childhood. While the air might have been hot your feet sometimes felt like they were frozen when you returned to the hot sand. So having warm to put on was essential to our beach outings. Barbie's coverup is a bit more fashionable than my beach clothing of those days, but it brought back some fun memories.

Notes:

To get the sizing I wanted I used a Tulip Etimo Steel -Size 2/1.5mm Crochet Hook with Aunt Lydia Crochet Cotton, White and golden yellow.