Lots to Love 8 Inch Baby Doll Pretty Yellow Dress

I've been making a real effort this year to try patterns that have been in my doll binders for some time that for some reason I've never made.

This is one of Amy Carrico's patterns called Pretty Pink Dress for 8 Inch Baby Doll. I started this one a couple times with different yarn and hooks and I know I didn't get it right because the picture shows a full almost bed dress picture and this is much narrower but it still works which is why I didn't just frog it and choose another pattern. It may not have been what the designer had in mind but I did get another dress for the donation doll.

For my notes I had to use a D hook for the dress as with the suggested Baby Bernat the dress was just too tight. I was able to use a B hook for all the accessories which continues to lead me to believe I'm missing something in the pattern design for the dress.

I need to work on some clothes for the 18 inch dolls and I really need to dress the family of Barbie with time quickly running out. I'm going to be making some of the Lots to Love 14 Inch Doll patterns I posted recently for the Rag doll, so that doll will also have an increase in donation size as well. I will just have to see what gets done before drop off time and start again for next year.

Lots to Love 8 Inch Baby Doll Thread Dress with Short Jacket

This is one of Char's patterns that you can purchase here not specifically designed for the Lots to Love 8 inch Baby doll.

I am used to patterns not being specific to the doll I'm working with so when the original directions were to small I started working on adaptations as I liked the look of the dress and thought it would be a nice addition to the doll's donation wardrobe.

Notes:

One of the first things I realized after playing with hook size and crochet thread size 10 was that I would need to change thread size to get the outfit to fit. I had purchased a supply of size 3 and I decided on Thread Art's Light Pink and Aunt Lydia's White.

Dress:

I used my Tulip Etimo 2.2 mm thread hook for rows 1-5, changing to my 1.75mm hook for rows 6-15. This made the dress slide on over the body of the doll. Even with the bigger thread size the doll is rounder in certain areas than the target doll perhaps?

Bottoms:

1.8mm Hook

Hat:

1.5mm hook

Booties:

1.5 mm hook

Reminder to myself these booties are formed differently than most. They start at toe not from bottom. They work up fine but this confused me when I started and I add this note so when I approach this project again I remember what I did and how it worked.

Jacket: 1.8mm Hook

I used a sc trim around the neck. I think do to the size difference in the dolls I couldn't get the trim to work with the neck of the doll I had.

Reminder to myself to order more 4mm pearl buttons.

Lots to Love 8 Inch Baby Doll Valentine's Outfit

As I mentioned when I made the Lil Cuties Valentine outfit, Char's pattern had adaptations for the hat to fit the Lots to Love 8 inch doll. The sizes of the two dolls are compatible enough that the adjustments I wrote about in the previous post worked for the smaller doll, too. You can purchase the pattern here.

Notes:

The pattern calls for a size 5 steel hook. I've never found the numbers to be helpful as the numbers vary by manufacturer so I try to stick to mm when recording so if I change hooks I have a better chance of matching mm than sizes. For this pattern I used my Tulip Etimo 1.75mm and 1.5mm hooks. For the dress I used the 1.75mm hook. Having finished off the pink yarn for the Lil Cutesies doll I dug into my stash of thread and located some new pink options for this dress as I wanted it to be different from the previous outfit.

I did not use a tie at the top and I finished the back with sc so I skipped the first stitch on both sides when working the collar. I didn't do this the first time and the collar didn't close correctly so I note it here for future projects.

The bottoms also used the 1.75 mm hook. I chose to finish the leg openings with a sc around the legs.

I used the 1.5mm hook for the shoes. I had previously made them with the larger hook and found them hard to keep on the feet. I found going down to a 1.25mm hook made the shoes too tight.

For the hat I also went down to a 1.5mm hook. I ran out of pink at the last row so I used a row of white at the end before the brim. The directions for the Lots to Love hat are slightly different than the Lil Cutesie directions as the heads are shaped differently.