Meet Madeline

I was lucky enough to be given this cute little doll by a very generous friend, Connie.  As soon as I saw her I was smitten.  Immediately she appealed to something in me.  Connie pointed me in the right direction to find out Madeline's history of how she came to be.  What an interesting story this turned out to be.  On arrival Madeline was wearing a little blue and white striped dress with a sailor collar.  Of course I had to make her something new!  I made the long socks out of a pair of my pants that had seen better days, they worked out really well as they are very fine tee shirt type fabric.  Then the little dress I made up myself.  I wanted her to have a pleated skirt.  The pleats took a bit of puzzling out but I'm pleased with the result.  As Madeline is only about 7.5 inches tall I had a bit of trouble sewing the dress on my sewing machine so most of it is hand stitched.

Here's a picture of the Barbie in another dress I knitted.  You will also see a Kelly with her, also sent to me by Connie....

I made the Kelly some white socks too and knitted her the little dress.

You may notice that the quality of my pictures is much better.  I had the wrong setting on my camera, it was on very low pixels so I went up to the higher pixels and got much better results.

I've had to stop knitting for a while and I've also had to cut down on using my computer so much.  For quite some time now I occasionally had a painful hand and just lately it's been very painful.  I think it is just from using the mouse and the way I hold it , a bit of a break from this will hopefully ease the problem.



A Little Party Dress

This little dress is almost the same as most of the dresses I've made for this doll, all that is different is that I put a layer of lace onto the skirt...

I also made the bodice shorter than I have done previously, it suits the doll better.

I'm still knitting for Barbie, it's a good way for me to practice my knitting as they are nice and quick to make, I get bored easily!  So far she has four two piece outfits and four dresses.  I also knitted a tiny little dress for a Kelly doll (Barbie's little sister).  As soon as the Kelly arrives here at my house she will have a little dress to wear.



Barbie

I never thought I'd buy a Barbie.  However, there are so many fab Barbie knitting patterns on the internet, and I'm trying to get to grips with knitting, that I gave in and bought one.  Here are the things I've knitted so far, sorry about the terrible quality of the pictures, must have the settings wrong and a bit of a shake on...



Simple Knit Top Pattern

I'm still persevering with knitting.  This little top has a knitted body and crochet sleeves.  I'm still having trouble getting neat edges on my knitting so decided to do these crochet sleeves as it gave a neater look than my knitted ones...

Crochet Sleeved Knit Top – doll size 10/11/12 inch

Needles – for slim doll 12(2¾mm) and 10(3¼mm)                  for chubbier doll 10(3¼mm) and 8(4mm) Yarn DK

Front (or back if making cardigan)

Cast on 20 stitches with thumb cast on

Rib 3 rows

Knit first and last stitch of every st st row

St st 9 rows and place marker

St st 10 rows

Cast off

Back (or fronts if making cardigan)

Cast on 20 stitches (or 10 if making cardigan)

Rib 3 rows

Knit one stitch at side and 2 at centre on every st st row

St st on 10 stitches for 9 rows and place marker

St st 10 rows

Cast off

Repeat for other side on the 10 stitches remaining on needle

Sleeves (crochet)

Sew the shoulders leaving enough neck hole to suit your doll Sc around armhole from marker to marker

3 ch then dc 1ch in each st

One round for short sleeves, more if you want longer sleeves

Join sleeves with a slip stitch

Sew or crochet sides together.  Sew buttons on centre back (use small buttons that will ease through the knitting without the need for buttonholes)

If you need any clarification let me know

How To Make A Simple Bed

Two shoe box lids, one smaller than the other.  A piece of card cut to size for the headboard.

Stick the smaller lid right sides together with the bigger lid, the smaller lid becomes the base.  Cut the piece of card so that it fits snugly into one end of the bigger lid and the height you want for the headboard.

This is what you end up with...

I think that for the small amount of work it took this bed is pretty good, if I do say so myself.  Even the bedding didn't take long, it was mostly just straight sewing and the mattress is just some wadding sewn into a cover.  The crochet blanket was very quick and easy, I did make it smaller than in the pattern so that it would fit the bed.  And I made quite a few mistakes because I was excited about getting the bed finished!



All-in-one

I finished another little crochet underwear item, once again from Beth's blog.  I still haven't bought any nice crochet cotton so this one is also made using 3 ply baby knitting yarn.  I think it suits Ginny...

I've got to have a bit of a break from crochet now.  I promised my friends that I would come up with some bed linen for us to make.  I have plenty of white polycotton and loads of lace.  My idea is to have lace and pin tucks on the sheet and pillow case.



Lacy Undies

I found the pattern for these undies here and just couldn't resist making this set.  Ginny is a bit small for the pattern as is, so I had to alter it a bit.  I think it is very pretty.