Not socks

Ugh, I've got an end of summer cold and it's the pits! It's slowed me down, but hasn't stopped me. I'm up to day 12 of my sixth round of 30 poems in 30 days. Some days I feel like I'm just phoning it in, other days I catch a little inspiration and find myself someplace unexpected. Those are the days that make it all worthwhile.

And despite the fact that I have socks on needles for Dennis and Emma both, as well as a multitude of yarns lined up for my own socky enjoyment, I am not knitting socks. Instead I'm doing this:



The pattern came from a knitting booklet I discovered at my mom's house over the summer, from the early 70s. You can tell it's from then because even though the pattern is printed in black and white, it unequivocally calls this an orange fashion doll dress. Orange! Anyone want a little green shag carpeting to go with that?

I think it came out quite nicely. The ruffles are created by dropping stitches and letting them ravel down to the hem. The capelet is unattached, so the dress can be worn with or without it:



I also made two of these outfits, one in blue for Emma's doll and one in purple for Kate's:



All of this Barbie knitting was prompted when I was cleaning out Emma's closet and found a top my grandmother had knit for my doll back in the late 60s. I took a look at it and decided I would try to replicate it. Here's the original and my version side by side:



I love these projects because they provide nearly instant gratification, not to mention the girls get so excited and enjoy them so much. Now if I could just get rid of this cold, imagine what I could do...