Amilia Thistledown

Amilia Thistledown, a golden skinned elven child with a talent for spinning thistledown into gossamer yarn, to knit lighter than air fairy shawls :-)

She is a Grace Notes doll, with elf ears.  Her hair is fun fur, which is a fun and easy way to make a doll wig.  She has dangly glass earrings, and her dress is basically the nightgown pattern with a different lace edging.  Her shawl is pretty close to thistledown; knit from lace weight silk/mohair yarn.

We took pictures in Garfield Park and around the conservatory.  So many pretty purple flowers!

Capriccio Cottage

Where do Grace Notes live?  In Capriccio Cottage!

I love making dollhouses; the simpler the better.  After being inspired by the dollhouse in "Knit and Crochet Garden,' by Arne & Carlos, Capriccio Cottage came into being.

The book and the dollhouse :-)

Capriccio Cottage began with two wooden crates and a handful of scrapbooking papers purchased at Michaels.   You could stain or paint the crates; I applied three coats of polyurathane varnish to the wood.

I took along one of the dolls just to make sure the crate would be the right size for a dollhouse.  The dolls are nine inches tall; makes the rooms a bit cozy, but it works.  It would work just as well for 16cm to 26cm BJD's :-)

Scrapbooking papers come in a wonderful array of colors and patterns, and are remarkably inexpensive.  I even found some great papers for flooring!

I cut cardboard for the floor and the back wall, leaving the sides unpapered.  Check the fit; it works best to cut the cardboard 1/4 inch smaller than the crate dimensions.

After the fit check, apply glue to the cardboard.  I squirt it on from the bottle, then use an old paint brush to smooth the glue out.  As you can see, it doesn't need to cover the cardboard completely.

Lay the glued side of the cardboard down on the scrapbook paper and smooth down, then fold the edges of the scrapbook paper up over the back edge of the cardboard and glue this down as well.

 

Your covered cardboard should look like this, with neat edges and a smooth surface.

Let the glue dry, then insert into the floor and wall into the crate.

Your dollhouse is now ready for the interior decorator!  

I made a couple of peg racks from scrap wood, spools, buttons and scrap paper.  Instead of glueing the racks to the side walls, I nailed them on.  It makes a nice place for the girls to hang their clothes.

Its nice to have plants in the house, and tiny cactus seemed to be just the right thing; they won't require much water, and they were the perfect size :-)

Here, the plant stand is a Willow ware candleholder, the rug from a Gail Wilson kit, and the chair and bench made from clothespins and popscicle sticks.

And finally, another Grace Note to move into Capriccio Cottage :-)

Ruby Grace, green-eyed with red mohair French braids

Wonderful yarns to make dolls with :-)

I am always looking for luscious yarns to make dolls with, and I have three to share with you.  The first is Berroco Vintage worsted yarn, which is a wool/acrylic/nylon blend.  It has a lovely feel to it; soft and cool with a wool hand.

Three great colors for making doll bodies:  Chana Dal, Fondant, and Mochi (they also have a darker brown yarn, Mocha).  The yarns are available from Fabric.com and are reasonably priced at $6.98 for a 3.5 oz hank.  Don't let the fact that the yarn comes in a hank disuade you from buying; to wind a hank into a ball of yarn, just take your kitchen chair, turn it upside down, and drap the hank around two legs.  It takes me about 15 minutes to wind 3.5 oz of yarn into a ball.

Patons Classic Wool is a 100% wool yarn.  It is NOT a superwash wool, so don't put your finished doll in the laundry, unless you want to felt her!   This yarn has a lovely wool feel to it while knitting, and makes up a lovely doll:  Ebony Grace was knit with this yarn.  It is also available from Fabric.com, for $5.48 for a 3.5 oz skein.  The colors above are Sesame and Winter White.  Also available is a darker brown, Chestnut.

And Knit Picks offers a 100% wool yarn:  Wool of the Andes.  This is also NOT a superwash yarn, so do not put the doll in the laundry!  There are so many lovely colors to choose from; this selection looked the best on my computer monitor :-)  From the left are Brown Sugar, Chestnut, Almond, Oyster Heather, Cloud, and Creme Brulee.  I've just started a doll with the Creme Brulee.   These yarns are available from knitpicks.com for $2.69 for a 1.75oz skein.  Right now I think they are on sale.

And a quick peak into my mess of a workroom.  I see so many lovely pictures of to-die-for creative spaces and studios.  Mine is a study in chaos, with yarn in plastic tubes, or the boxes it arrived in!  Never enough room on the work table, which doubles as a photo shop.  And dolls and fabric and lovely boxes from Michaels on most of the other surfaces :-)

Welcome to my mess!

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 :-)

Making peace with Double Points

HarmonyAnn is my second Hippie doll from the Arne & Carlos book "Knit and Crochet Garden."  I've made my peace with double point knitting needles, and although the first few rounds of knitting are still a bity wonky, it is worth putting up with as the doll unfolds upon the needles.  Nice it is there are minimal seams to sew :-)

Hippie's Cardigan

Hippie Joy, from the Arne & Carlos book "Knit and Crochet Garden" is a delight to knit for.  She is 12 inches tall with a slender waist, so any outfit knits up quickly.  I've already made her a pair of overalls and pullon sweater from the book, but Hippie Joy wanted a cardigan sweater to wear with her pretty dresses.

I adapted a pattern from the 'Knitted Dolls' book, also by A & C, and freely offer it here for your very own Hippie :-)

Hippie Knit Cardigan

Now I want to work on a 'mini me' in Hippie style!