The Design Process

This doll design started with a foot.

I had made a couple of Arne&Carlos dolls, which I really enjoyed.  But the feet were so BIG.  It sort of limited what you could dress the dolls in, so I thought...


 a smaller foot might be nice...

with a more child-like body type...

 and hands that are not perpetual fists...






and a move-able head...

An altogether smaller doll.  I wanted to name the first doll Ruby Grace.  Then Grace Notes, those tiny accent notes in the musical sphere, came to mind as a perfect name for these tiny, charmed creatures.

Three iterations later, the doll and pattern are finished.   I've learned a couple of interesting things in making this doll:




 1.  She is knit in the round on dpns; this technique seems to produce a firmer and more uniform knit fabric.  This is especially  apparent when stuffing and embroidering the face.  Additionally, for very tight gauges, wool yarn is much friendlier to knit with than acrylic: the stitches slide off the needle much easier with wool than acrylic.





2.  Not all knit increases are created equal.  The first two prototypes were knitted using the 'knit front-and-back' increase, which looked, frankly, clunky.  For the final doll, I used a lifted increase (do a Google search for this if you are not familiar with it) which made a lovely, practically invisible, increase.

The leg on the left used 'knit front and back' increases; the one on the right the lifted increase.

So here is the pattern:  Grace Notes Knit Doll

I hope you enjoy adding a tiny bit of Grace to the life of a child with Grace Notes :-)