Lillian Hopewell

Lillian Hopewell is a young woman of the 1890's.  Graduated from Wilberforce College in 1893 with a B.S. mathematics, she is about to begin her first day of teaching.  She is nervous, confident, and excited; she knows that to teach is to touch the future.

One way that she personally wants to touch the future is to buy one of the new safety bicycles.  Imagine, being able to travel under your own power at 10 miles per hour!  

Lillian's mother came to Zanesville, OH in 1863 as a teenager, in the company of her aunt and uncle along the Underground Railroad.  In Zaneville she met Lillian's father, who owned a small dry goods store.  After a lengthy courtship, they married, and Lillian was born in 1870.  Their only child, and most beloved.

Patterns for Lillian's first day at school suit:

China Doll Dickey

China Doll Gibson Girl skirt

China Doll Gibson Girl jacket

Lillian Hopewell, from the knit China Doll pattern by Sarah Elizabeth Kellner

Sophia Delphine and her fantasy petticoat

I am still captivated by Sarah Elizabeth Kellner's China Doll pattern, and the wonderful possibilities she presents.  My latest doll is Sophia Delphine, a young lady of 1855.  She is wearing a petticoat with a strapless crochet sweetheart bodice and a lace net skirt, embellished with a bit of Irish crochet.

China Doll Strapless petticoat

I'm not sure poor Sophia will ever get anything more to wear than her petticoat; it is so pretty I hate to cover it up!

I have another doll in the works, Lillian Hopewell, a young black woman of the 1890's.  Right now she is just a head and shoulder plate:

Lillian has a story to tell; it will be exciting to hear what it is :-)

Anna Celeste, China Doll #2

Anna Celeste is the second doll I've made from Sarah Elizabeth Kellner's China Doll pattern, which is available on Ravelry.  The original pattern makes a doll about 14-15 inches tall when worked with sport/dk yarn and 3mm needles.  I wanted a doll slightly smaller, so I knit her with 2.75mm needles,  took out an increase row in the torso, shortened her arms a legs proportionately, and also made her head in the round in one color, so I could add a wig.  Anna Celeste turned out 11 3/4 inches tall, with a 5 1/2 inch waist and hips/bust 7 inches.

This pattern is great!  The resulting doll is an amazing reproduction of the antique china dolls, and becomes a wonderful canvas to create period costumes.  Anna Celeste is wearing a 1850's inspired walking suit, with blouse, belted skirt, and Zouave jacket.  All are separates and removable.

1850's Blouse

1850's Belted Skirt

1850's Zouve Jacket 

In addition to the walking costume, she also has a simple side-to-side camisole and pantaloons:

1850's Camisole and Pantaloons

This camisole top would be the perfect beginning for an 1850's style evening dress, simply attach a full skirt (like the belted skirt) to the camisole, and add some frothy sleeve and bodice treatment :-)

I would like to make Anna Celeste a trousseau, placed in a keepsake box.  Maybe she is about to go to Europe, and if so, she will need some traveling companions too.

Josephine, an old fashioned girl

Knitting and crochet are amazing; one is only limited by their imagination as to what can be created in these mediums.  How about a China Doll? 

Josephine is a knit China Doll, created from the pattern by Sarah Elizabeth Kellner, available on Ravelry.  This lovely knit China Doll is constructed very much like the antique originals, with swing legs, torso and arms of a contrasting color, and a knitted shoulder plate with head that attaches seperately to the torso.  It is a masterpiece of knit engineering, and produces a sweetly old-fashioned doll that can be your starting point for your own collection of knit China dolls :-)

With DK/Sportweight yarn and 3mm needles, my Josephine stands just at 14.5 inches tall.  Her camisole and pantaloons with the lovely knit lace are part of the pattern, and fit like a dream.

Tansy Mae's Wardrobe

Tansy Mae wants to share her wardrobe patterns with you :-)  One for  simple knit capri pants, that can be made into trousers, bloomers, or shorts.  The other is a collection of simple top-down knits to make a smock top, T-shirt, and a lacey nightgown.

Except for a bit of a back opening on straight needles, all of these are knit in the
round on size 4 dpn's.  For some reason, using fingering weight to sport-weight yarn, my gauge was 6 stitches to the inch.  These are simple, loose fitting items, so a slight variation in gauge will probably not be a problem. 

These knits are sized for a 10 to 12 inch Waldorf doll.

Waldorf capri pants

Waldorf Tshirt/smock/nightgown

Enjoy the day!

Tansy Mae

Tansy Mae is another Waldorf doll with a knit body, knit in the round on dpn's.  Her T-shirt and tunic are knit from the same basic pattern, from the neck down.  This pattern is easily adaptable for shirts, dresses, tunics, and nightgowns.  Currently I'm working on a nightgown with eyelets in the skirt.  When I get all the instructions written up, the pattern will be freely available here. 

I like the idea of working top down and seamlessly.  Thanks to Ravelry for introducing me to this technique :-)

I used fingering weight yarn for the T-shirt, and sport for the tunic and capri's.  For some reason, both worked up to the same gauge with size 4 dpn's, about six sts to the inch.

Weir Craft's Waldorf Doll Kit

 Weir Craft Doll Kit cover image

Since starting to make Waldorf dolls with knitted bodies, I've been wanting to try this kit, which is offered by Weir Crafts.  They sell all kinds of Waldorf dollmaking supplies, plus lovely wool felts, roving, and batting.

So, I bought the kit and made up a doll!

The kit has everything you need to make a 12" to 13" doll; Alice Blue turned out to be about 13" tall.  If you have never made a Waldorf doll before, and like to knit, this is a great place to start.  All the supplies needed to make a simplified Waldorf head are included in the kit, and I really liked the way it turned out.

The yarn for the body is a dk/sportweight yarn.  I little thinner than I like to use, but it knitted up very nice and soft; it is a lovely quality wool yarn.  I would also have liked a bit more mohair yarn for hair;  I added some from my stash to give her a fuller head of hair.

I put together a picture tutorial of making this doll, which is available on my flickr photoshare site:  Weir Kit Waldorf Doll Tutorial.

If you are interested in this kit, here is a direct link to it:  Waldorf Doll Knit Kit
The kit is customizable for doll skin color, hair color, and body yarn color.

Happy Dollmaking!

New dolls for the New Year

Above is Mimosa Jade, the latest Cottage Flower doll.  She has a classically made Waldorf head and a knit body; the pattern for which is freely available on this blog.  Her jacket in Asian inspired and keeps her warm in the high mountains where she lives with her family.  They are nomads and herdsmen, and share the lonely mountain tops with ice and eagles.

Here is the pattern for her jacket and boots:

Asian inspired jacket

Just in time for Valentine's Day is Ruby Valentine in her heart-strewn dress!  She is also a Cottage Flower Waldorf doll, and the pattern for her dress and cardigan are here:

Valentine's Dress and Sweater

Both of these outfits are worked seamlessly from the top down, using a combination of straight and double point needles.  The yarns are worsted weight wool: Patons Classic Wool and Knit Picks Wool of the Andes.

Keep warm, and enjoy your New Year!

Gifts of Love

Christmas this year included some very special gifts, from our nephews and one of my Aunts.  Top left are candle holders made by our oldest nephew; they are Ball Mason jars with colored tissue paper decopaged to the outside.  Inside were the most delicious cookies, baked by my brother, the Master Cookie Chef!  Top left is an embroidered stitchery depiciting myself, Larry, and one of our cats, created by our middle nephew.  Lower right is a birdhouse, made by our youngest nephew, and lower left is a lovely glass ornament with my Mother's picture, given by my Aunt.

Ivy Rose and Ginger Kate are flanking the favorite gift I ever received as a child...this sweet stuffed tiger.  I was eight or nine, I think, when I found him in my stocking on Christmas morning.   And nestled between them is the 2014 White House Ornament, a tradition my Mom and Dad began several years ago.  Our Christmas tree is now heavy with them.

Ginger Kate has joined my sweet family of knit Waldorf dolls.  We want to share her rompers pattern with you!

Ginger Kate's Rompers

I am going to call these dolls Cottage Flowers, as that is what they make me think of.  Knitting a doll, and thinking of flowers, in the middle of Winter is a happy pasttime.  I hope all of you are having a happy day :-)

A Merry Christmas to All!

Here is hoping that all of you have a blessed Christmas day, shared with those you love, and filled with wonder and joy.

My final project for 2014 is a sweet Waldorf doll with a knit body.  Ivy Rose is about 12 inches tall, with a classic Waldorf head secured to a body knit in worsted weight yarn on double point needles.  No seaming!!

The pattern for Ivy Rose and her pinafore is here.  The instructions include a link to a picture tutorial for making the head that I put together several years ago:

Head tutorial

and a tutorial for making hair:

Hair tutorial

Both of these tutorials are also available here on the blog, along the left hand side.

Ivy Rose and I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Cassidy and Noah

I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving, and that your Christmas preparations are more joy than work :-)  I came down with a bug a few days after Thanksgiving, and it is only now beginning to loosen its grip on my health.   And of course, I ended up sharing it with my husband :-(  Thankfully, both of us are on the mend.

Something better to share is Cassidy, a doll I worked on, slowly, once I started feeling better.  She is based on Deena Thomson-Menards Lottie doll pattern, which is freely available on Ravelry.  Those wonderful hands are from a tutorial available on her Ravelry group We Make Dolls.   I modified the feet so they would feet those darling baby booties that Cassidy is wearing, which is also a free pattern on Ravelry: sneaker booties on Ravelry.

Alternate foot for Lottie

Romper Pattern for Lottie

Cassidy's puppy, Noah, is from a crochet pattern offered here a few years ago.  You can find it by scrolling down the left sidebar.  Look for the picture of the kitties and 'Links to my Animal Patterns'  :-)

Happy Holy Day season to all of you!!  Stay well.

Dolls and their clothes :-)

I've been working on two dolls from Deena Thomson-Menards Lottie pattern, one for a Knit Along, and the other while waiting for the next pattern in the Knit Along to be revealed :-) 

Rachael Bleu is a slightly smaller version of Deena's doll, about 19 inches tall.  She's close to American Girl size, which is a nice size to knit for.  I made her a blue tunic sweater from a free pattern on Ravely, which you can find here.

I also worked up a raglan sleeve pattern and a jumper dress for Rachael, both very simple knits:

Little Lottie Raglan Sweater

Little Lottie Jumper Dress

Hope your hooks and needles are humming with Christmas gifts :-)

Hazel Catdancer

She watches over small animals. She lives in places hexed and tainted by black magic. She can only be seen when the bees swarm and the crickets chirrup. She wears black feathers and rose petals and has multicoloured wings like a butterfly. 

 

On Moonless nights

When the wind is high

She shelters the small

From the Nighthawk's cry.

Fearless before

The darkening gloom

She dances on

The left side of Doom.

For the tiny and timid

Know her to be

Their Guardian, Protector,

Fearless and free.

 The little animal companions are from a pattern by Fuzzy Mittens, Wee Woodland Wuzzies.  You can purchase it on Ravelry.  There is also an Otter, Hedgehog, and Mouse :-)

Ember Agaricglow

She brings hallucinations. She lives where fireflies mate and breed. She can only be seen in the light of a full moon. She wears dresses that glow with fiery colours and has russet-coloured wings like a brightly coloured butterfly. 

Ember Agaricglow

In Forest glades

Where fireflies dance

Beneath the moon

On leaf and branch

There dwells a maid

Of midnight fair;

Pale is her skin,

Dark is her hair.

Ember eyes,

A heart of flame;

A vision in moonlight;

Speak not her name!

Or weave she will

A web of deep

Entangled dreams

to haunt your sleep.

Hallucinations

She'll bring to thee;

A fairy charm

Which has no key.

 My completed fairy for the Ravelry Fairy KAL.  This has been so much fun, I've already got another fairy in the works:  Hazel Catdancer!

Fairy Knit-Along

I joined a Fairy Knit-along (Fairy KAL) on Ravely that has been awesome good fun!  It is being sponsored on four groups:

Fiona McDonald's Fans

How do you make dolls

Fiber Fairies

The rules are simple:  create a Fairy name and description using this online Fairy Name Generator, then make a fairy to match.  You can use any pattern you like, and combine knit, crochet, felting and sewing techniques.  The fairy needs to be completed in order to join a Fairy Meet-up on Halloween.

I am using the Grace Notes pattern, and my Fairy is described as follows:

Ember Agaricglow

She brings hallucinations. She lives where fireflies mate and breed. She can only be seen in the light of a full moon. She wears dresses that glow with fiery colours and has russet-coloured wings like a brightly coloured butterfly. 

As she has taken shape in my mind, she has pale ivory skin with hair the color of midnight.  Nightshade tatoos are embroidered on her body, and her eyes are the color of embers.

I wanted realistic looking butterfly wings for her, so I modified a couple of my crochet butterfly patterns: the Swallowtail and the Milkweed butterflies, then decided to add to this a pattern for Luna Moth wings as well.  

Grace Notes Butterfly Wings

She still needs hair, and her fairy finery.  Coming soon :-)

Victoria Grace

The latest Grace Note is Victoria Grace.  She is knit in Knit Picks Oyster Heather yarn, with a combination of boucle and straight mohair yarns, plus a shimmery strand of golden lace weight mohair.  She has blue eyes and a very sweet dispostion.

She is wearing Victorian lace underwear, and a robe knit from lace weight mohair yarn.  I have to confess, the robe was a royal pain to knit!  This cobweb-fine yarn kept wanting to slide off my needles, especially working the sleeves in dpns.  I do not have specific instructions for it; in general, knit a lace panel for the bottom edge, long enough to allow you to pick up 80 stitches without puckering the knitting.  Then, work the body with raglan decreases to the underarms (48 sts on the needle).  Knit 10, bind off four, knit 20, bind off 4, knit 10.   Finish the robe like the raglan sweater pattern, working the sleeves on dpn's beginning with 20 sts in K2P2 ribbing, then increase to 24 sts for the length of the sleeve.  Bind off four and knit 20, then join to the body.  Raglan decrease down to 40 sts and work two rows of garter stitch.  I used size 2 and 4 needles, if you use a sportweight yarn you might want to use size 2 and 3 needles (the smaller needle for ribbing only).

I'm not too proud of the quality of the knitting, but it does have a lovely drape :-)

The underwear, however, was quite simple and made up equally well with worsted cotton yarn or sportweight cotton yarn.

Victorian Undies

On the left, worsted cotton yarn; on the right, sportweight cotton yarn.

A Christmas dress in June

This dress started life as a sleeveless summer dress, but somehow the pattern stitching and colors changed this to a Christmas dress :-)  Of course, change the colors and work a different pattern, and it can be any dress you like.

Grace Notes Red Dress

The pattern stitch came from the book "Alice Starmores's Book of Fair Isle Knitting,' which has an incredible number of pattern stitches that can be adapted for doll clothing.  This book is well worth purchasing, or borrowing from your local library.

Enjoy!

...and just a couple more patterns.

A couple of more patterns for the Grace Notes; a raglan sleeved cardigan sweater, tee-shirt, and shorts:

T-shirt and shorts

Ragland sleeve cardigan

The shorts can be made longer for pants, and the tee shirt would make a great dress bodice.  Sweaters are always nice too :-)  All of these are knit with light worsted yarn and size 3 needles, mostly in the round except the cardigan (the sleeves are knit in the round, then joined into the body).

Happy knitting!

Dressing Up

I have been working on a wardrobe for the Grace Note dolls; they are such a nice size to knit for...not too big, but not too small :-)  Ebony Grace is showing off her sundress and shrug, the pattern is here and on the left sidebar of the blog:

Sundress and shrug

She also has a tank top and undies; the tank top can be worn with shorts as well (coming up soon)

The pattern is here:

Tank top and undies

And every girl needs a sweet nightgown.

The pattern is here:

Nightgown

This should be a good start for your doll's wardrobe.  Enjoy!

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 :-)