Knitalong - With Prize!

As winter is winding down, I’m excited about spring, but also a little sad to be about to put away all my knit items. I thought it would be fun to have one last winter knitting hurrah, and host a knitalong of the Winter Toppers hats! And let’s face it, a knitalong is even more fun when somebody gets a prize! Interested? All the details (and pictures of the prize) below!


How To Participate
To participate, all you need to do is knit a hat from the Winter Toppers for 18” Dolls pattern, and post a picture of the finished hat on the knitalong thread in my Ravelry group by March 31, 2018. That’s it!


How You Could Win
On 4/1, I will choose a winner at random. I’ll announce it here, and will also send you a Ravelry message, so that I can get your address details and get your prize to you!


The Prize
The prize is a spring jacket for your 18” doll such as American Girl! The coat is handmade by me of a linen/cotton blend, and fully lined in a blue and white striped cotton. A few pictures follow, but please note that only the blue coat in the pictures is included in the prize, and not the doll or any of the rest of her outfit/accessories.







Happy knitting, doll fans!

Winter Toppers: A New Knitting Pattern for 18" Dolls!

Last fall, amidst the craziness of my last semester at college, and working a job that was sucking my soul, I had a notion that I'd like to make up a doll hat knitting pattern, both to make some fun doll hats but also with a mind to publish it for anyone else who might like it. Of course, because of afore-mentioned craziness, I never got further than a few rows of hat sample #1 before it ended up it the knitting bag, where it languished for almost a year.

About a month ago, I was thinking about it, as I had so many times before, and I just decided it was time. So over the past month, I have been having a ball designing and knitting up samples. I've come up with what I think is a nice little pattern with a lot of opportunity for customization!



The pattern includes three "views," for three different hat styles. There is a very classic hat with optional pompom and heart motif, a slouchier version of the classic hat, and then a fun "stocking" style with optional stripes.



In designing these hats, I wanted to make sure they were as simple and fun to knit as they could possibly be, so I paid a lot of attention to the little details, like trying to work out shaping and other details in an easy to follow way, and minimizing how often you have to move stitches around the needles. I also wanted it to be versatile, so the three hats can have any of the details swapped out, including the heart motif, which will fit perfectly on any of the three views you'd like to knit.



They use a sport weight yarn, which I felt was a good compromise as far as staying away from the worsted weight folks often use when patterning for dolls (which I feel ends up looking a bit too chunky for a doll for my personal taste), but without getting down to a fingering weight (which would make the project take a lot longer - although I am working on another hat pattern for those of you who like a more delicate look and don't mind the extra effort it takes to work with a finer gauge!) The small yardage required makes them a great stash buster, and they are quick to knit (a speedy knitter will likely be able to knit a hat in one sitting) which lends them nicely to last-minute holiday gift making!



This pattern is now available via Ravelry (Winter Toppers for 18" Dolls), and if you decide to purchase it this week, you can save 20% by using coupon code WINTERHATS (good through the end of Sunday, 12/10).

I also decided to start a Ravelry group (Historically Dressed Ravelry group) for my knitting designs, so that there is a place for people to ask questions, and to show off their finished things made from my patterns. I hope you will have as much fun knitting these hats as I did designing them!

Miniature Gingham

I absolutely love things that are in miniature, and am a big collector of the historical American Girl dolls (and have been since they first came out!) So, when I got asked by a fellow doll-collecting Instagrammer if I had interest in combining my love for weaving and dolls and weave a modified reproduction of Kirsten’s long-retired St. Lucia tray cloth, I said yes!

Because I had only just dipped my toe into the world of using double heddles, I decided that I would first weave a sample. This would give me a good idea of exactly the size heddle, yarn, etc. that I wanted to use, and I figured it would not be a waste because I could make a little pair of placemats for my own Kirsten.

The warp for this project was, of course, very small! My Mom had a little wooden dish rack she’d brought by for repurposing into something else, but when I saw it, I thought, mini warping board!



I used some Valley Yarns 8/2 Unmercerized Cotton that I’d bought them a few months earlier during one of our Brimfield antiquing adventures, in which I dragged everyone to Webs (and have no regrets because Webs is yarn heaven, people! Also, the staff are amazing, knowledgeable, and super helpful!) These colors are “Natural” and “Sagebrush.”



This was my first adventure in making something where I wanted a fringe on all four sides. The logical thing to do seemed to be to just leave extra yarn loops on each side, and then I figured I’d hem stitch all four sides. (I really am obsessed with this hem stitching thing! It’s just so tidy and perfect, and I love it!) The resulting placemats are super cute!





I was really happy with them, but thought I could do a little bit more tweaking to the sett, and since I was waiting for back-ordered yarn anyhow, I decided to have another go. I used a slightly different sett this time, and the same yarn, but swapped out the green for the “Peaches ‘n Cream” color.



With the green pair, controlling those weft-wise loops was a bit of a fiasco, so this time, I decided to try adding a few ends in waste yarn at approximately where I wanted the loops to end. This worked brilliantly! It really made the weaving fly by. In no time at all, I had another pair of placemats!





By then, I was ready to begin the actual red and white cloths. However, Webs was out of the right color of red that I needed, so I had to go hunting. I decided to try Halcyon Yarn's Homestead 8/2 cotton. I found it to be very comparable to the Valley Yarns cotton I'd been using, though perhaps a hair finer. The colors I used were Light Red 29, and Bleached White.



I ended up making three tray cloths for the lady who inspired this adventure, and her two daughters. They are quite a bit larger than Kirsten’s original tray cloth, per her request, since her tray was also larger than the original. When I finished the three cloths for her, I still had quite a bit of warp left, so I went ahead and made myself a tray cloth as well, but with dimensions closer to the original. Now I just need to come up with some sort of tray to put it on!