Doll Sweaters and Toy Box Full of Toys

It has been awhile since I blogged, so I have a lot to show.  My granddaughter, Dot, asked if I would make a sweater for her doll like the one I made for her for Christmas.  I did, and of course, that means that I had to make five more for the other granddaughters.  I have finished three of them and will be soon doing the other two.  They will be used as part of their birthday gifts for this year.  I am giving the sweaters to them now as an early birthday gift, and I will make more doll clothes for the rest of the gift and will give the other clothes at the time of their birthdays.  I have two in March, so I will need to get going on them.  One of those is also the one who needs a sweater done.  She lives in Penn. and will be coming up in a couple of weeks, just before her birthday.  We will celebrate her birthday while she is here.  So, here are the doll sweaters.

This is Dot's. She wanted a light green sweater. It was the first, so I experimented with it to get the size I needed.  I used the pattern I used for the girls' sweaters, so I had to guess at the number of stitches to use.  I guessed pretty well, because the sweater fit her doll perfectly.  Instead of a zipper in the front, I used button loops and buttons.  These sweaters look a lot like the girl's sweaters, but of course, there are not pockets.  They are too small and not necessary at all. Opening zippers that small would be hard to find, so I just used the buttons instead.

The back of Dot's with the hood up.

Front view of the sweater.

Back view with the hood down.

This is Lucy's doll's sweater.  She chose to have the brighter pink for her doll.

Back of Lucy's.

Front of Lucy's

Lucy wearing her sweater with her doll wearing her sweater.

Lexi's doll.  She chose to have the red sweater like Portia's sweater.  She wanted it because she wanted the red buttons.

Back of Lexi's doll.

Another project that I had to do was for my friend at church.  She wanted me to help design and sew an early American costume for her to wear at her birthday, house warming party.  She already had a black layered skirt and bought a blouse to go with it.  She planned to use the underskirt of her wedding dress to give body to the skirt.  The problem was, the skirt had a tear in it near the bottom of the lowest level.  She wanted me to repair the tear, but it was too big, so what I did was cut off part of the layer to just above the tear, and then I added black lace to the bottom of the skirt.  The skirt is a little shorter than the underskirt so it gives another layer to the total skirt, with black lace showing over the white underskirt.  She also wanted to make her bum stick out like the style of the skirts in those days.  We went shopping and she picked out a material that she liked and I bought some cream colored lace to go around the edge of the cumber bun that I made.  I didn't have a pattern, so again, I was just experimenting with a way to do it.  I ended up taking three yards of the material and left it folded in half length wise.  I stitched along the folded edge down far enough to put an elastic into it to make the waistband.  I cut the ends of the material in a semi circle and then I sewed lace between the two edges.  I then gathered the edge.  It gave me the effect that I was looking for.  I was pleased with the way it looked, and Patricia liked it, too.

This is Patricia in her early American costume.

Most recently, I have been working on a project for my friend's grandbaby that will be born in March.  I have made a toy box out of plastic canvas and several toys to go in the box. 

This is the front of the box.

Top of the box.

Back of the box.

Left side of the box.

Right side of the box.

Bottom of the box.

All the toys in the box.

Another view of the toys.  I wanted to make each of the types of toys that I had on the outside of the box and then a few others just to fill up the box.  The ball matches the front of the box, with the same colors that are on the bottom of it. The teddy bear goes with the left side of the box with the bears and the clown goes with the right side of the box with the clowns.  The duck goes with the back and the top of the box.  I had to make up the pattern for the duck, since I did not have one.  I used the basic head and body pattern that was for the owl.  I also used the same for the wings, but I had to create a pattern for the duck bill, the feet, and the tail.  The feet are actually the same as the owls, except for the last step on the owl, the toes have to be pinched to give it a talon look.  With the duck, I just left the foot flat and knitted a bottom piece just like the top and sewed them together to give them thickness.  The tail was a little tricky, but I think it turned out pretty good. I made the owl because at first, I was going to make it a bear.  I remembered that I had the teddy bear pattern to sew on the machine and I decided I would make that bear instead.  I had already knitted the head for the bear, but since all the animal patterns from this book of patterns uses the same basic pattern for the heads and bodies, I just decided to make the owl with the head that I had already finished.  I just had to make the owl facial features instead of the ones for the bear. I decided to make the camel because it is from another group of patterns that I like to make for babies.  They are so simple to make and I like the long thin legs and neck for the baby to grasp onto.  I also had the perfect colored fleece to use to make it out of.  The elephant is probably my favorite.  I love these patterns that I have for the tiny toys, but they are so hard to make because they are so small.  If they were not so difficult to make, I probably would have made more of them, but he was enough.