Knitting Doll Clothes!

Hi!  This is Grace.  Eavia and I were busy knitting this December.  Some little girls we love have (fairly new) American Girl dolls, and very few clothes for said dolls.  We decided to fix that!  Here are some of the items we came up with.

Pink Party Dress

For this dress, I casted on 140 stitches (size 8 or 10 needles) and knit for one row.  Then I decreased on every third stitch for a row, then on every other stitch for a row.  This brought me down to 70 stitches.  I think I purled for one or two of the first rows after I got down to 140 sts.  That kept it from curling up too much.  Then I knit normally for about 8 inches and decreased in an inch to I-think-36 sts.  After doing about 2.5 inches of that I bound off 2 sts. under each arm and did another inch on this side (stockinette stich.)  I tied them off with yarn at the shoulders, you can barely see the pretty knot peeking out on the doll's right shoulder.

 

This is what Eavia did at the same time.  Yes, she did this in the time I knit 3 outfits.  I have teased her about how she knits slowly, but I think the real difference is that she spends valuable knitting time on stuff like schoolwork and cleaning.  Anyway, using size 8 needles, she cast on 50 stitches, knit for 6 inches, then decreased to 40? for the bodice.  This bodice is done the same way as the pink one.

 

I also made a series of mix-and match pieces.  The long skirt here is very easy, it is basically a hat, but instead of closing it I bound off at 30 stitches.  The shorter skirt is a straight 45 stitches, or however many it takes you to get a circumference of 13 inches.

The bodices are a little more complicated.  I'll try to make another of each (especially the multicolor blue) and take pictures as I work.

 

 

One other thing:  Eavia got creative with some 5-inch ribbon.  She stitched two long pieces together for a skirt, and used another piece for the bodice.  The top didn't turn out very well, it needed hemmed and doesn't match on the sides.  I am hoping to try another of these in an improved pattern, and maybe take pictures along the way.  But, here is the first draft.

 

 

God bless you,

Grace & Eavia