Doll Clothes and Dishcloths

I have found a fun new thing to knit: Dolly clothes! Specifically clothes for American Girl Dolls, and their younger sibling Bitty Baby. Ravelry has a whole group of knitters who knit for these dolls, and there are many free patterns available to make. This not only uses up stash yarns that may not have another use (like single balls of sport-weight cotton) and leftovers of things like sock yarn and worsted wool scraps. You see, the designer outfits which are made specifically for these dolls cost at least 25 dollars or so, and since it's only fun to play dolls (I've heard) if you have multiple dolls and multiple outfits, it is quite possible to spend as much or more on doll clothes as my average annual income. And I'm only exaggerating a little bit. So check out what a cool mommy I am:

I had some KnitPicks Shine Sport (2 balls) and no plan for it, and then I found THIS PATTERN and it turned into a 2-day knitting obsession. I've never knit a cardigan with a button band before, and I've never knit doll clothes. I had a lot of fun putting this together. I gravely underestimated the length of time required to put the button band, neck band and side seams into an 8-inch sweater. I sat down at 9:30 and told myself I'd knit for "45-minutes" and finish it up. When I finally finished I had a kink in my neck and it was 11:35. I'm happy with my result, though, and I'll feel good about gifting this. And I'm designing a skirt to go with it, and I've started a pair of legwarmers, scarf and hat. And that's just for one of the 6 American Girl Dolls who currently reside here with us. I'd better get cracking! (I'll post some pictures once I get the ensemble completed...)

I have been immensely enjoying my Barbara Walker Treasury of Knitting Patterns. From it, I designed some dishcloths:

The blue and green one on the right is the "Diagonal Woven Herringbone" pattern, with a garter stitch border. The Red and Yellow one on the Left is the "Slipped Hourglass" pattern. I had fun making swatches from the book into useful dishcloths. It gave me a chance to try it out and see what the fabric characteristics are without a huge time commitment, and if I made a mistake here and there, it will still look OK while washing dishes.






The Slipped Hourglass pattern was fun, a little tricky until I got the hang of it. I think it would make a nice scarf....



The Diagonal Woven Herringbone Pattern would be nice as a reversible thing such as a scarf...the right and wrong sides are different, but both attractive: