A dress for Emily

Emily sitting pretty on our shelves

I find most dolls which have human faces frightening, but the two my daughter Caitlin has inherited are different.  This is Emily, given to her by my mum and she has a sweet face and pretty hair.  For Christmas I decided to knit her a dress from a book that I'd bought for Caitlin full of lovely knitting and crochet patterns to make for her dolls.  Admittedly she hasn't done any herself yet but I'm sure she will.

Dress Up Your Dolls by Lise Nymark is packed full of delightful designs both knitted and crocheted, dungarees, cabled sweaters, day dresses, evening wear, all sorts of clothing that can easily be customised.  The designs are for a standard 18" doll and Emily is bigger but it's fairly easy to add a row here and there, I added quite a lot to make it longer and I think it's still a bit short, but Caitlin loves it and I guess that's all that matters!

Emily's dress is adapted from the Safari Dress pattern.  The purple wool is James Brett's Top Value DK, an acrylic that is nevertheless soft to knit with (#8431 Lilac).  Purple is Caitlins' favourite colour and the wool came from the stash of my grandmother-in-law, the much loved matriarch of the family who died last year.  For the trim I wanted something fluffy and this certainly was that, it's Beregere De France's Plume #2010.  It was very slippery to knit with but was only for a short stretch.