Knitting again :)

[tephra]

I know you are all thrilled. ;)

Wow, there's a lot I never mentioned here, so in vaguely chronological order:

I suppose I should mention first that I have a new doll, Namid, who was my Christmas gift from hafoc. ♥ She's Anjeni's Mom.

A new doll means there is doll knitting happening. She was hanging out in a shirt she swiped from Anjeni (tight cropped T on her, oversized on her kid) and a hanky that I pinned as a wrap skirt. Since skirts are drafty there had to be panties:

 

I made them up as I went along, working a strip of cowrie lace then seaming the ends and knitting the booty coverage and crotch. There are thigns I will do differently next time I try them.

And the cold toes needed slippers:



I like the modification I did on the slippers. The orginial pattern had four mitered squares for the sole and I didn't want to deal with that many ends (like I did when I made Anjeni's pair) so I did the sole as one large square. The result hugs the arch of her foot nicely and I'm wondering how well it would work for human slippers that actually get walked in.

She was looking chilly in the cropped T so I knit her a sweater:



Hated the neckline and the way the shoulders bunched up, but she wore it until I got fed up with the poor fit and ripped them out and reknit:



Much better. The sudden appearance of hair is thanks to toshirodragon, who was kind enough to send me her boy Nicco's old wig. We're considering this the Storm Cosplay Era.

My swirl hat pattern in doll size!



I made it for Anjeni but Namid stole it to cover her lack of hair.

And moving away from dolls, those knee/thigh high socks that some of you may have heard of:



They're at the widest part of my calf now, I'll have to figure out how I'm going to snug them up around the knee while leaving them large enough to pass over my calf soon. They're my own pattern. :)

I know I've mentioned that I crochet as well, but other than doll wig caps you haven't seen proof.



There you go. :) It's a Japanese pattern that I've modified for my overly large American skull. I only have a few rows left on that.

And back to the doll knitting.



Knitty's Coachella pattern again, knit as written for the XS size with 0000 (1.2mm) needles and what amounts to a single strand of embroidery floss. It's a bit large on her but I can live with it. Otherwise I would have finished it and tried to sell it because I would cry to rip out that much work. I'll be making it shorter than the pattern indicates to compensate for the oversized fit. My gauge on this, for the curious, is 20 stitches per inch. For comparison, the commerically knit T-shirt I am wearing is about 28 stitches per inch.

Just finished today so it's not going under a cut:



Pattern #4 from the 2008 winter issue of Vogue Knitting. I used sport weight yarn and size 3 needles for the lace portion, knitting as written for the smallest size. I then dropped down to size 2 needles and started winging it. I decreased after the lace, added some short rows for her bust, changed it to a V neckline, and did raglan cap sleeves. I didn't make button holes, there are snaps sewn behind the buttons.

Comments

[kyrenea]

Wow...my dolls are jealous.

The red hat is gorgeous, wish my crochet skills could hold water to your's. My next task, once I work up the courage, is to crochet the Hello Kittyy granny square - I found a pattern chart, but no written instructions, so my mind ought to be kept confused.

[tephra]

The first time I downloaded a free crochet pattern, after not crocheting for about... oh, twenty years or so, was a shock. I was expecting the dense columns of abbreviations that patterns were written with when I learned to crochet. Instead I got a couple pages of diagrams and brief amount of text stating the hook, yarn, and size that the motif should measure when finished. It didn't even have an explanation of the symbols in the diagram! Once I found a site to explain those I was set though, diagrams work much better for me, and as a bonus Japanese patterns are basically all diagrams. For the hat I'm working on I just grabbed yarn and a hook that I thought would work well with it and dove into the diagram. :)