Lion Brand Contest - Crocheted Dolly Dress & Bonnet Set

Shows the dress and bonnet set I made and some of the thought process that went into making it.

Materials: 1-2 skeins of Lion Brand Color Waves Yarn (Pebble Beach color); Crochet hook (don't remember what size - J maybe?); scissors

Time to make: about 3-4 hours give or take

Stitches used: chain, slipstitch, single crochet, double crochet and decrease stitch (not sure if that's the right name for it or not)

Size: fits my daughter's American Girl Bitty Baby Doll

"Pattern" (he he):

I'm not much on patterns, I just sort of look at it, visualize it,
and then DO it, but in case you want to try to make this,
here's BASICALLY what I did:
1st round: chain to about 7-8 inches long, Turn.
2nd round: skip one stitch and SC in each of the rest of
the chains to the end. Turn.
3rd through 9-10 rounds (however many rounds you need to
get to the bottom of your sleeves): SC around to make shape
shown above. (1 SC per stitch except where the red dots
are in diagram, you do 3-4 SC in the SAME stitch.
in ONE STITCH. Also, increase evenly across the sleeves to give a little ruffle.

Check to make sure the sleeves will fit comfortable over the doll's arm,
Then on the next round connect the bottoms of the sleeves with a slipstitch and continue around.
At this point you can also close the opening in the back so that you now have one continuous
round. SC around once or twice (or more if you want your waist to be lower). Next do the ruffle. *CH 4, then SLST (slipstitch) in the next stitch. Repeat from * all the way around. If you don't want as wide of a ruffle, only CH 2 or 3 per stitch. Or you can vary
the ruffle by doing this: *CH4, then SLST in 2nd stitch from your chain (skip a stitch in between). Lots of ways to do a ruffle.
Experiment with what you like.

The Skirt: don't tie off your yarn; just continue on from your ruffle. flip your ruffle UP, and continue underneath of it with the following:
treat the base of your ruffle as your starting point and:

Round 1: SC around (1 SC per ruffle "loop" or thereabouts);
Rounds 2-4: At this point, you'll have to increase or decrease depending on the size of you doll and how full you want the skirt to be. For example:
Gradual increase: *1 SC in each of the next 3 stitches, 2 SC in 4th stitch; repeat from * around
More dramatic - fuller skirt: *1 SC in each of the next 2 stitches, 3 SC in 3rd stitch; repeat from * around

5-? rounds: 1 DC (double crochet) per stitch around in continuous rounds till skirt is as long as you want it to be.

Last round: do the same ruffle as you did at the waist on the hemline.

Finishing:

String a length of yarn through a blunt point needle and run it around the waist (weave it through in and out behind the ruffle). Tighten it to gather the waist to your taste and to better fit the doll.

SLST around the neck opening to smooth out any uneven row edges.

CH 6 and SLST to top of neck for a buttonloop. Attach a large button, or one you've made (I made mine out of yarn).

Make a bonnet, put em on the doll, and you have a happy little girl :-)

Click Here to see the LION BRAND YARN I have for sale on Ebay!

Comments

[canida]

That's beautiful! Thank you for the carefully thought-out directions - they'll be very useful if I get brave enough to try winging it. ;)

[common_sense_mom]

Thanks, I wasn't sure if my descriptions would make sense to anybody but me. If you do decide to try to make something similar, let me know and I could try to be a bit more specific and describe what I did a little bit better or post more pictures. I'm REALLY bad at following patterns myself since I'm a visual person . . . he he . . . I'm just tickled pink that I actually FINISHED something. So many times I start fifteen projects and don't finish any of them :-) What works well for me is to buy something similar to what I would like to make and then look at it and use it as a starting point or "pattern" so to speak. The only problem with that is that sometimes I can't identify a stitch or pattern. Maybe somebody can help me with that -- I'm attaching a picture of what was on the bottom of the sweater that I got -- I can't figure out HOW on earth to do this crochet pattern/stitch. It's so nice because the rows blend seamlessly and it almost looks knitted . . . but it's definitely crocheted. And since I still haven't mastered knitting, but am always wanting to learn new crocheting tidbits, I'd like to figure out how to do this. It looks SORT OF like a variatino on a shell pattern, but not really. Anybody know what this stitch is called or how to do it? (oh, it's the one in the multicolor baby yarn not the pink) Thanks!

[common_sense_mom]

for some reason the image I added of the mystery stitch didn't show up; I'm new to this, so not sure how to do it I guess. will try again later

[common_sense_mom]

I figured out what I did wrong; although I had selected it to upload, I forgot to actually CLICK on the upload; I think I was tired and not paying too much attention. But I think it worked this time. Anybody that knows anything about how to do this stitch or what it's called? I'm always looking to learn new things :-) It's neat because it looks so seamless and you can hardly tell where one row ends and another begins.

[jbrooks22]

This is late I know but this looks a lot like a seed stitch: sc, ch1, sk1, sc ... then on the next round: you sc into the ch1 space, ch1, sk1, sc into the next ch1 sp, etc. Except that this person might've used a hdc instead of a sc to do it which is why it might be looking more like a star stitch. In any case, I've been around the 'net looking at crochet stitches quite a bit in the last 3 yrs 'cause I'm pretty obsessed w/ hooking and I've not seen that particular pattern before so please, share if you figure it out? It DOES look pretty! This is a variation of the star stitch but it pretty much describes what I mean:

http://www.myhobbyiscrochet.com/2014/06/crochet-star-stitch-variation-star.html

[trixie60]

It also looks like you made a cross stitch between other stitches. hope I helped you. I have to see pattern to do the work, never have been able to envision something then do it. ha! Good job you did, though!

[common_sense_mom]

Thanks for your help trixie; the problem is that I didn't make the item shown above (the pink and rainbow pastel cardigan). I bought it, so I have no idea how the stitch was made. I'm not sure if it's treble crochet or not . . . I thought I knew how to do that and didn't think it was that. It's a combination of single crochet, half double, etc it's definitely a pattern of sorts, I'm just not sure what order to do them in. I've looked at it so many times and honestly you can't even tell which row is which, so it's hard to tell which stitches are "reaching" to a lower/previous row and which are part of the current row. It's really neat. I'll keep fiddling with it :-) My latest thing is that I taught myself to knit and am having fun with that. But if I need to make something in a HURRY, crocheting is still MUCH faster. Thanks again for your comments and help identifying that stitch for me :-)

[common_sense_mom]

I should clarify that the stitch I'm having trouble figuring out is the one the rainbow pastels is done in. The solid pink is definitely triple/treble crochet.

[trixie60]

Your mystery stitch looks similar to a treble crochet stitch. Treble st is: yo twice, insert hook in st and pull up a loop. YO and draw thru 2 loops on hook; YO and draw thru next 2 loops on hook; YO and draw thru remaining 2 loops on hook. I can't really tell for sure though. Does that sound like something you did?

[canida]

Hm. Sometimes the servers get a bit wonky and don't show updates right away - maybe that's what happened? I made changes to one of my slideshows, and while it showed up in the preview area it took a day or so to show up on the published Slideshow. Is the picture still in your library?

[trixie60]

I love the outfit, just what I'm searching for. My granddaughter is 3 yrs old and has 4 baby dolls approx 7 in tall. And baby doll clothes are so expensive to buy. Thanks for putting this out for others to see and do.

[Mr. Rig It]

That is very cool!

[common_sense_mom]

thanks; I'm just tickled I actually FINISHED something for a change LOL

[stinkymum]

My mum always used to make clothes for my dolls out of odd bits of yarn.

[common_sense_mom]

so did mine; I especially loved the little quilts she used to make out of odds and ends of fabric; too adorable