Hello, Dolly

This is my first attempt at making a knitted toy. I saw the pattern for this doll in Weekend Knitting , and thought it was a good project to try with some leftover cotton yarn I had. I broke one of the cardinal rules of knitting by skipping the guage swatch, but since I was just playing with spare yarn, and I didn't much care what size the doll would be, I just went with it.



I tweaked the pattern a bit (kntting the head portion in one piece, for example, and using the face yarn for the back of the head instead of the hair color yarn) but didn't veer too far off course.

The instruction were easy to follow, and it turned out to be a great project for some travel I was doing a few months ago. The legs and body are knit in one piece, each arm is knit flat and seamed, so everything is on straight needles, and almost all in stockinette stitch. The sweater is knit separately after the doll is assembled, and the hair and facial features are embroidered on at the finish.

I found lots of places where I made minor mistakes, but everyone who saw the finished project thought it was quite cute (except my dad, who said it looked like something from the Blair Witch Project).

Since the doll turned out nicely enough, I decided to give it to my new baby cousin, who was born on the day I left for the trip during which I knit it. So, while she was going through her first days of life, I was passing the time during my layover in Minneapolis-St Paul Airport.