The Doll

 

I finished Olivia's birthday present last night.  I spent more than three, yes three, hours knotting hair into this doll's head.

You know when you get an idea and think it's a great idea until you are halfway through it and then you realize that it was the stupidest idea ever?  That was me about 2 hours into the hair.  Originally I wanted to crochet corkscrew curls for her hair, but I decided that there would be no way I'd get it done in time.  For once, I was realistic.  But I did want her to have a nice, full head of hair.  Well... she definitely has that.  I used probably more yarn on just her hair than the rest of the doll.  Insanity, I tell you.



But I kind of like it now that I'm not in the process of making a billion knots. And her hair isn't fluffed out or anything, there's just that much of it.  I have pretty thick hair myself and I'm jealous of this doll.

It was a labor of love.  A week and a half of my nights devoted to this doll.  It's a great pattern... I'd never used a chart like that before and I think I kind of prefer it.  In fact, when I am copying a pattern down from the internet (I don't have a printer at home and sometimes I'm too impatient to wait until I get to work to print something), I often abbreviate things down to just stitch counts for a row anyway.  It's not like most amigurumi patterns have complicated stitch patterns.  It's all sc, inc, and dec for the most part.



I did make the shoes, but forgot to put them on.  They won't stay on unless I sew them onto her so they'll be lost in no time anyway.  No big deal, I think she looks fine without them.



I did go off on my own a little bit with the dress.  It's by the pattern for the most part, but I was tired and ended up just lacing up the back and carrying the yarn over to make skinny straps instead of crocheting them and sewing on buttons.  I like it though.  She's a tad goth-looking with the gray and dark red and black.  Working on the Daisy afghan, I'm a little burned out on pastels and I had these colors on hand.  I gotta mix it up.

I've decided I might crochet amigurumi a bit too tight.  I hardly ever use my G hook, but I pulled it out for the dress.  I had last used my G hook on a different (and unfinished) ami project.... and it was warped.  I bent my hook crocheting.  So maybe I go a bit overboard on the tension.  Just a little.

I see two more doll requests in my future, so I'm already scoping out other patterns.  I can't make the same pattern over and over.  Here are two options I'm looking at:

Source: ravelry.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I'm not overly fond of the head... I might make it rounder.

Source: ravelry.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

She looks like a Lalaloopsy doll =)  And that's the hair I wanted to do...

I still have to finish up the legwarmers.... I have one leg finished and about 1/4 of the other.  I am thinking it might not happen tonight, so she probably won't get them until Sunday when we have our family birthday celebration.  They are also using more yarn than I anticipated, so it's debatable if I even have enough yarn!  I'm a horrible judge of these things.