Category Archives: Knitting

New Knitting Pattern

Happy Friday to everyone! I finished my sweater dress pattern (earlier than expected, yay!) for the Little Darlings. If you read yesterday’s blog post, “A Little Wish for Spring”, you saw the sample I made for this pattern. (The beret Alice is wearing is from my beret pattern.)

This sweater dress pattern has two sleeve lengths, short (shown) and elbow length. I’ve also included two dress lengths. I made the shorter length for “A Little Wish for Spring”. The longer length is the same width, but with 8 additional rows. The pattern guides you through the raglan bodice and then the increases to form the a-line skirt shape. BTW, as most of my knitting patterns are, this dress is knit all in one piece! The dress is made with fingering weight wool; I used Palette from Knit Picks in Blossom Heather.

My sweater patterns are made with ease to be worn over a dress. This sweater dress pattern, however, is made so that the dress fits on the doll without ease. It is a cute, fitted bodice, no bagginess. Dianna Effner created the most adorably sculpted Little Darling dolls, so I like to highlight their cuteness when I design for them.

LD sweater dress pattern p1

The sweater dress is the perfect canvas for embroidery or other embellishment. I’ve included photos from some of my other Little Darling sweater dress embroidery to spark you creativity.

This pattern is available on Ravelry.

Bye for now! Thanks for stopping by!

Is Knitting Gauge Static or Varying?

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For me, it is varying, quite varying in fact. I didn’t realize this until I started writing knitting patterns. I make it a point to measure my gauge for every sample I make for a pattern, even if I am using the same yarn I always use.

What this means is that I may have a pattern with a gauge of 11 stitches per inch and then have a pattern with 9 stitches per inch, and they both use the same yarn and needles. My state of mind greatly affects my knitting.

When writing my first knitting pattern, I know I was very stressed. I wanted to get it perfect. There really is so much to get right, or so much to get wrong writing a knitting pattern. I’m guessing that the stress I felt caused my knitting to be tighter than my original gauge taken when I first started using the type of yarn I was using for the sample. Recently I knit a sweater with the same yarn and the same needles. Now my gauge is looser than my original gauge. This is crazy, right?

So you can get a picture of how different my knitting gauge can be, here are the numbers. My original stitch gauge was 10 stitches per inch. The gauge I measured for my first pattern was 11, and the sweater I just completed was 9 stitches per inch.

The same pattern was used. Even though the fit is snugger with 11 stitches per inch, and looser with the 9 stitches per inch, all of the sweaters look fine in my opinion.

The great thing about knitting for dolls is that the projects are small and can be knit again quickly if you want to make changes to the fit.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the same pattern knit with a gauge of 11 stitches per inch and 9 stitches per inch respectively. As you can see, there isn’t a huge difference.

Happy dolly knitting! And don’t stress about gauge too much.

New Knitting Pattern For Amelia Thimble

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Your Amelia Thimble, and her friend Izzy, can now have all the dresses their little hearts’ desire. My knitting pattern for their a-line and party dress is now available on my website. Even if you don’t have these dolls these dresses make the cutest ornaments, miniatures, room box decorations, or simply hang them on branches in a vase. Let your imagination go wild! But be forewarned, they are addictive! For inspiration, here is the link to Amelia Thimble’s album on Flickr.

You’ll only need small bits of lace weight yarn to make these teeny tiny dresses. You can embellish them with embroidery, lace, ribbons. Have fun! Once you get going on them you can probably get all of your hand made gifts made in no time.

Amelia Thimble sweater dress pattern cover.jpg

In case you missed my first knitting pattern, Classic Cardigan, for Dianna Effner’s Little Darling dolls go here to check that one out.

Pattern is available as a pdf digital pattern; you’ll need a pdf reader application installed on your computer. Go to my website and click on the “Shop Patterns” tab.

Once you complete your Paypal payment, I will send the pattern as an attachment to your email address. Please make sure I have your correct email for sending the pattern to. There are no shipping charges and the pattern can be sent anywhere as long as you have an email address.

This pattern can be purchased on Ravelry.