Bluebell Dress

More images of the bluebell dress I made for my doll.
See here how to make the edging.

Bluebell dress

Sitting on a cushion I knitted years ago!

I used hooks and eyes to close the dress rather than buttons as they lie flat

Bluebell dress for doll

Using the dress pattern I had, I knitted this dress with a frilled edging, a technique I've not used before.  I thought the end result made it look rather like a bluebell! 

The most difficult thing was accurately casting on the vast number of stitches!  However many stitches you need for the pattern, you have to start with FOUR TIMES the number!  So I needed 80 stitches for the dress, which meant I had to cast on 360 stitches!  That was a LOT of counting.  I used circular needles, needless to say!  

Once you've cast on your stitch number x 4, you knit the first row like this:

Row 1:  K2.  Lift first stitch over second and off the needle.  At the end, you have half the number of stitches.

Row 2:  P2tog.  At the end, you'll have the number of stitches you're meant to have for the pattern - and your frilly edge.

It's not difficult but it is laborious.  

Frilly edge

Complete dress

I also knitted (from the dress pattern) the matching jacket but wasn't hugely impressed with the result.  The arms don't fit very well.  But the wool I used was pretty:  King Cole Drifter for Baby DK.  

Here's the link:  https://www.kingcole.com/knitting-wool/drifter-for-baby-dk/

Either I need to find another jacket pattern or try and adapt this one.

Anyone for tennis?

I knitted another cardigan for my doll, this time with matching shorts, headscarf and cute booties.  The cardigan is, once again, the Simply Knitting pattern (for a toy bunny).  The rest comes from a free pattern I found on the Let's Knit website.  The pattern is called Dolly Daydream and this link will take you there:  doll's clothes.

Here she is with the rabbit I knitted.  I think they make great pals!

I had a wee bit of bother with the collar.  I think next time I might knit it slightly differently to the pattern's requirements, perhaps making it bigger (it doesn't lie flat).  

I don't remember the yarn I used for this as they were all leftovers in my wool stash, but I can tell you they were all bamboo cotton, lovely to knit with in summer.  (And a very hot one we are having too.)

Doll's Cardigan

When I spotted this cardi on a toy rabbit in issue 170 of Simply Knitting (first time in years that I had bought a knitting mag), I had an inkling that it might fit my doll.

I worked out recently that this doll is at least 50 years old - possibly older as I think she may have been second hand.  She arrived one Christmas wearing a pink A-line dress (very 1960's) and had a blue pram, which I remember wheeling around the house for years.  My mother had crocheted her a blue granny square blanket, which I've also still got.

The doll came back to England with me as I thought my daughter would be interested in playing with her.  She wasn't, needless to say.  When my mother died 10 years ago, I wasn't capable of doing anything except knitting and sewing clothes for this doll.  I worked without patterns and - since my knitting wasn't very good in those days - the results were sweetly amateurish to say the least.

But at last my doll (and she is mine again) has a cardigan knitted properly from a pattern.  I used an entire ball of Rico Baby Dream DK to make it, including the headscarf.  The latter was a bit small so I've joined the ends (under her hair) with elastic.

The poor doll never had a good head of hair.  Half her eyelashes have gone and she's got a gammy leg .... and this was the state of her when I got her!  But I love knitting tiny things so may get more inventive.  Lucky dolly.