Homestead Crafts: Knitted Doll Pattern

Since we are creeping on toward the holiday season I decided to share one of my crafted gift ideas with you.  A couple years ago I decided to hand-make the Christmas presents for my little nieces.  I believe that something that's been made with love and thoughtfulness makes a wonderful gift for those we love and is something that can be passed down with time.

My thoughts ran through my limited skill set and I landed on making knitted dolls for them.  Now, I'm anything but the worlds best knitter so I needed something that a relatively inexperienced knitter could tackle in a short amount of time (I needed to make two after all) and that wouldn't make me pull my hair out before the project was done; I found a great pattern by Vivian Hoxbro at www.viv.dk for her Danish Christmas "Nisse" dolls.  At first I was a bit intimidated by the instructions, but once I figured out how to read them the directions were very simple.

What I used for this project:
1 skein Red Heart Super Saver yarn in "Buff"
remnant of purple and soft pink yarn (for dress)
remnant of soft pink and purple yarn for scarf, contrast stitching in dress and belt
remnant of chunky brown yarn for hair
white sewing thread
sewing needle
2 small black buttons with posts (for eyes)
cotton batting for stuffing
1 set of size 8 double point needles
1 crochet hook

Instead of knitting the Christmas dolls in the original version, I decided to change the coloring so that the dolls would resemble my nieces and would have a dress in each of their favorite colors (pink and purple). Otherwise I followed the directions for the construction of the dolls.  Once the dolls were completed and the dresses had been finished, I made the hair out of chunky brown yarn by inserting a crochet needle through a stitch on the dolls head and out the other side, then I doubled the yarn and hooked it before pulling it back through the stitch.  I made sure to hold one end of the yarn firmly so that only the other end would be pulled through.  Once that was done I simply knotted the yarn on the head and proceeded from there until the head was covered to my liking.

I also did not knit the shoes in a contrasting color opting instead to leave the entire leg and feet in buff.

I hope you enjoy this pattern as much as I did, I can see endless possibilities for this, possibly a teddy bear or something similar in the future.  Just knit some ears and sew them on the head instead of the hair.



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