Tag Archives: sweater coat

Evianna’s First Ensemble, “Spring Greening”

Happy Sunday to you! I hope it is a good one. The sun is shining and the snow is already melting here in northern Illinois. The snowfall we had on Thursday ended up being a disappointment for me, but that is ok. The flakes were so fine that they could hardly be seen. I think we ended up with 5 inches of snow over the course of about 18 hours. Maybe the next one…

However, I still made the most of the day by staying in and finishing up Evianna’s first ensemble. It was very relaxing.

Evianna is my Christmas 2022 doll. I love getting a new doll for Christmas… or my birthday… or Mother’s Day. In fact, anytime! A box showed up yesterday and it was a dolly shaped box… but it was only a new filter for our water filtration. 😞

Evianna is the first Li’l Dreamer Dianna Effner doll. She is a sweet addition to my Dianna Effner doll family. I love her!❤️

I found this dress partially finished in a box from another doll. I guess it didn’t fit that ‘new’ doll well enough, so I abandoned it. It fits Evianna quite well, not perfect, but nice enough so I finished it and completed her first ensemble. I have no notes on which pattern this is, so I have to start from scratch for her second ensemble. Oh, well…

I dyed merino wool to get the palest shade of yellow green for Evianna’s knitwear. In the hank the yarn looked barely dyed, but when knit up it is definitely a beautiful yellow green and matches the dress florals beautifully. I made her sweater a bit longer to cover the bodice length and gave it a slight a-line shaping. After many hours of embroidering, and adding shimmery Czech glass bead buttons her sweater was complete.

The beret was looking for some adornment, so that too, got some embroidery.

To complete her ensemble I made pale pink cotton tights. Her tiny crocheted basket holds some pink blossoms. Evianna’s heart charm bracelet tells her that this ensemble was made with love just for her!

Evianna and I say ‘bye for now’. Thank you for stopping by for a visit with us today. We appreciate the company! Take care and enjoy the week ahead! 🤗❤️

The Past Couple of Weeks

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Hello! How are you? I hope you are doing well. All is well here with the days flying by at the speed of light.

I have started a couple of new ensembles for the Little Darlings–apple themed. I only have a small stash of apple fabrics, so had to pick from what I have used before, which is fine. I don’t mind using up what I have.

I am making a red sweater coat for the blue fabric and a mohair cardigan in blue (to match those cute little flowers) for the pink. I finished the red first and am glad I tried it on before sewing up the underarm seams and weaving in the ends. Look at how big it is on Alice! Is she shrinking? lol

I’ve heard this happening to knitters–your gauge changes over time. I guess mine did just that. I thought I noticed in my last two cardigans that they seemed a little roomier, but they still fit nice, so I didn’t think twice about it. It really shows up in this style though, and with this type of yarn. I first thought I’d need to find a bigger doll to wear the sweater coat, but then I thought I could save it by ripping out rows. It seems like the biggest size problem is in the length and not so much in the width. I’d think it’d be both. Anyone know why that is?

I’ll be working on these two ensembles this week and hope to have more progress to show you soon.

Other news… I received a couple of embroidery books for my birthday in July. They are both beautiful additions to my library! I love looking at floral embroidery–such beautiful hand made gems that make my heart sing.

If you need bullion stitch inspiration then “A-Z of Embroidered Motifs” is for you. It’s chock full of motifs created with this stitch. This is the stitch I use to create the roses on my cardigans. I have an album created on Flickr that contains all of my floral embroidered pieces in case you’d like to see them.

There are 28 pages dedicated to bullion roses in this book! In addition to detailed visual instructions for creating bullion stitches there are instructions for other flowers, foods, nursery motifs, animals, and Christmas motifs.

My second book is a newer book titled “Embroidered Country Gardens” by Lorna Bateman.

This book is dedicated to flower gardens using a multitude of embroidery stitches. She also includes instructions for garden gates, archways, baskets, birds, bird feeders, a birdbath, insects, gardening tools, watering can, old-fashioned lady gardener. She has a dozen projects as well as showing you how to build your own embroidered garden. If you love gardens you will find this book inspiring.

We visited the Chicago Botanic Gardens last weekend. It’s so wonderful to be able to visit again. We went once in July and again in August (last weekend). I took a ton of video on this visit and made a little movie in iMovie showcasing the sounds of water there. It’s not complete as we didn’t get to every garden, but it shows some of the water gardens and the relaxing sound found there. If I can figure out how to get it on You Tube I can share it with you. I will let you know.

Did you have a nice weekend? I hope so! It’s hard to believe it’s September! Thank you for visiting.

WordPress has changed their editor, so I apologize in advance for any weird things going on in this post. I have just now learned the bare minimum to get this post made. It’s so hard learning new things…*sigh*

Something New… “Warm Hugs and Kisses”

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It feels so good to have this ensemble for the Little Darlings finally finished! This was the other one I started in early December. Sheesh! Since all I want to do lately is knit, I had to add this to my “to do” list to get this one completed—and I’m glad I did. I really enjoy seeing my happy Little Darling, Lucy, enjoying it so much.

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See how happy . . . and cozy warm she looks! Her sweater coat and cap set is knit with merino wool/angora yarn. It is slightly fuzzy with a halo and is quite soft. The sweater coat is knit with my pattern. I shortened it by one buttonhole’s length and omitted the pockets. The hand embroidery on this sweater coat and cap is pretty and feminine and coordinates with the dress print.

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The cotton print I selected for the dress is a calico from a “Little House on the Prairie” collection. The Cluny laces in this ensemble are from England. The scalloped lace is cotton and the sturdier lace used for the sash is nylon, both are off white in color.

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Lucy’s other accessories include a hand knit wool scarf, heart charm bracelet, pink cotton tights, and a Teddy bear which is customized to coordinate with this set.

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