Lots to Love 10 Inch Baby Doll Sweetly Pants and Top

I've been working on a series of Darski's free baby doll patterns to fill the baby doll donation bags. The Lots to Love 10 inch Baby doll has two pattern sets to work from. This pattern comes from her Sweetly pattern found here.

While I haven't restricted myself from getting new yarn I've really been pushing myself to use up the older orphan yarns in my stash some of which seem to magically appear when I think I've used them all up. The yarn for the shirt is an old skien of A.C. Moore's sport yarn that I'd stocked up on before they'd closed because it was a good doll weight yarn. I am really trying to finish off these older skeins to reduce the look of a hoarding yarn room.

Notes:

For the top, I used the suggested F hook with the A.C. Moore yarn which is a slightly heavier sport yarn than the baby yarn I generally use with the baby doll patterns. I used one button to close the top in the back.

Another challenge I've given myself is to try some of the designs I've avoided over the years because the techniques bother me. So I did attempt to make the pants legs up rather than waist down using Bernat Baby Sport yellow. I found the legs were both tight and short so I changed to making the pants waist down as I always do and added a trim at the bottom of the pants. Sometimes it just isn't worth fighting with my preferences but I did try. I did not use elastic in the waist for these pants.

I keep playinng with the booties but this seems to be the best fit yet.

Complete row 1-3 of the booties.

Row 4: sc in back loops around

Row 5: sc reducing 4 times at toe

Row 6: sc evenly

I did a sc ch 3 around the top.

I thought I'd worked the the bonnet worked as written last time but this is actually closer to what the bonnet is designed to look like. Not sure I mind as this way the doll has two different bonnets.

Skipper Ski Outfit

I've been revisiting my pattern binders and pulled out the House of White Birches leaflet Crochet Wardrobe for 11 1/2 inch Fashion dolls to try Ken's pants for Barbie to go with her poncho. I discovered I needed Ken's pants while reading the 2021 post about Skipper's Ski Outfit and it reminded me this could be a quick set of outfits for the older members of Barbie's family. Since I'd pulled up the notes I had for Skipper I decided to start with her outfit.

Notes:

I used a C hook for this outfit.

The purple is a no longer available Babe cotton yarn that I'm trying to finish off. I'm thinking of using this on Barbie's poncho pattern for a smaller version for Skipper as well. The yellow is Knit Picks Pallette yarn.

I added an additional row to the pant legs. These seem to be short on both the Barbie and Ken patterns for the modern dolls.

I added one 2 dc in one dc in next row for the hat after reading my previous project notes and I found this made the hat fit better with the doll's hair.

Due to the change in yarn I needed to finish the back and neck which added more of a mock turtleneck look than the sweater I'd made previously. I liked the look.

Water Bottle Carrier

This carrier is based on the water bottle carrier I made several years ago from Leisure Arts All About Cotton book.

One of the biggest changes that has occured since I made the last round of these carriers is that refillable water bottles have gotten quite a bit larger than the disposable water bottles that this pattern was originally designed to carry. It makes sense people are focused more on hydration so carrying more water is important. However, the original pattern needs a wider bottom to accomadate the larger bottles.

For this particular bottle I did a base of 32 stitches. I worked Rows 1-3 as written. DC2 Dc in next 6. This gave me my 32 stitches to start and then I followed the pattern accounting for the extra base stitches until I reached the height I wanted for the larger bottle.

Since this was a gift and I didn't have access to the bottle, I used a food canister I had that was about the same size to make sure it was forming the size I wanted and checked it before adding the strap.

I have two types of straps I make for these bottles. The pattern starts with 100 chains which works as an over the shoulder or hand carry strap. However, when I made mine I wanted a cross body strap as I find stuff tends to fall off my shoulder when I most need my hands free. I settled on a starting chain of 160 and that is what this bottle has as the person getting it wanted a cross body option.

I used an I hook for this project and Lily Sugar and Cream Psychedelic. I've started on a second one that is still larger than the original pattern but smaller than this one so we will see how it works out.