12 Months; 8 Projects

Okay, so it's July 2023, and I'm finally getting around to posting my 2022 knitting project round-up post. I did eight projects in 2022, and as I think you'll agree when you reach the end of this post, the eighth was a doozy. New Year's Eve 2022 found the eighth project perhaps 95% finished, but those finishing details were such a pain that I kept putting the project aside for anything else for months.

Anyway, it is finally done, and my write-up of it (which took me a day to write!) finally added to this post, so let's have a look at the eight knitting projects I completed in 2022. 

On New Year's Eve 2021, when I was making plans for the coming year (and with me, making plans means making to do lists), I was looking over my gift list and realized I needed to plan a Christmas 2022 gift for the grandnephew who was to be born in February 2022, and despite (or perhaps because of) the effects of a tumbler and a half of homemade Bailey's, that evening seemed like the perfect time to plan a sweater for the little guy. What better pandemic-style solo New Year's Eve could I have?

I browsed patterns on Ravelry, and selected the one you see depicted above, the Everyday Pullover Sweater, designed by Raya Budrevich. I've made it before (for my grandnephew Bug's second birthday), and I remembered it as a quick and easy knit that I'd been satisfied with. Then I checked my stash to see what yarn I might have that would work for this project. I found some chocolate brown worsted (the ball band for which was long gone), and most of a skein of Red Heart Soft in Leaf. I thought the two colours worked together and there would be enough of both to get the job done.   

And here's the finished product, which I knitted in a size 12 months in January 2022. Sawyer turned ten months old in December 2022, and he would have been able to wear it all the rest of the 2022/2023 winter. 

I also gave Sawyer a teddy bear I had sewn for Christmas 2022. It amuses me that the bear and the sweater go so well together when I didn't plan for that. In the pictures my nephew sent me of Sawyer wearing his sweater and holding his teddy bear, Sawyer looked like a particularly well-accessorized baby. 

This sweater took 30 grams of brown yarn, and 110 grams of green yarn, with a total net stash decrease of -140 grams. 

When, in August 2021, I first began searching Ravelry for patterns for a baby blanket and booties for my nephew's expected son, I thought something hockey-related would be a fun idea. Luke loves hockey as much as most of the Canadian men I have known do, which is to say to an extent that is beyond all reason. During a hockey game in late 2007, when Luke was 20 years old, he got hit in the face with a puck, and it smashed four of his teeth. Luke then proceeded to remain on the ice, playing and spitting out fragments of teeth, until the game was over. Surely my needlework skills could produce a softer, gentler tribute to his love of hockey that would be much easier on his dental work. I had initially even toyed with the idea of making a Maple Leafs baby blanket for the baby in tribute to Luke's favourite team, but I would have had to design one myself, which I wasn't particularly interested in doing, and besides, Sawyer is an Albertan. I didn't want him to be a social outcast or a laughingstock among all his baby friends. 

Among the hockey-related patterns to be found on Ravelry were a few designs for hockey skate booties. There were both knitted and crocheted examples of that design concept, but though I don't enjoy crocheting, there was no denying that the crocheted version was the best one. Generally speaking, crocheting is stiffer than knitting, but while knitting tends to be the better choice for clothing because it drapes better, crocheting often takes the lead when it comes to shaped objects like toys, because crocheting holds its shape better. The sample knitted hockey skate booties looked so limp and floppy compared to the crocheted ones. I set my teeth, resigned myself to crocheting my grandnephew's booties, and went with the Newborn Hockey Skate Booties, designed by Jamie Louise, and pictured above. 

When I checked my yarn stash, I was pleased to discover that I had black, gray, and white worsted yarns on hand that were suitable for this project. I no longer have the ball bands for any of the three yarns I used, but they were run-of-the-mill acrylic worsteds. I did have to buy a 3.75mm crochet hook, but now I'll have that size hook in my crochet hook collection for the next time I need one. I made the booties over the course of a few evenings in February 2022. You can see the result above, and I think they turned out well. Luke got a kick out of them. 

These booties, which were made entirely out of stash yarn, weighed in at 50 grams when finished, so that's a stash decrease of -50 grams. 

One day in March 2020, while idly scrolling through my Twitter feed, I saw a tweet authored by my friend Christine in which she'd posted the photo composition you see above of Celine Dion in two very unfortunate outfits that were reportedly styled by a friend of hers, with the query, "... if your friend does this to you on purpose, are they really your friend?"

I must admit that if a friend of mine tried to get me to wear any of these outfits, I'd question their understanding of me and my taste, their motives, and possibly also their sanity. I've made a number of pieces of clothing for Christine over the years (by my count, and if I'm not forgetting anything: four sweaters, a suit jacket, and a jersey dress), and couldn't help thinking complacently that all of those pieces definitely looked better than... what you see in the photo above. 

Our little exchange of tweets on the matter got me thinking that it had been so long since I'd made Christine anything -- I believe she received the last item in 2010 -- that she had probably worn out all the things I'd given her, and I really ought to make her something new. I added "sweater for Christine" to my knitting project list and picked out a pattern for it, but I didn't get to it that year, nor in the following year. In late 2021, when I was working on a tartan table set for my friend Lindsie and deciding that it would be her 50th birthday present, I also determined that I would definitely get Christine's sweater made in early 2022, and that it would be her 50th birthday present. 

The sweater above is the Veneto Sweater, designed by Handmade Closet. It's a lovely design and it struck me as being perfect for Christine. I could just picture her in it. 

As for the yarn selection, Christine's favourite colour is cranberry red (two of the four sweaters I have made for her have been that colour), so I decided this sweater would be a cranberry red with, if possible, a variegated yarn in warm cream/tan/light brown tones for the contrast colour. Christine is blond with a tan skin and brown eyes, and such a colourway would suit her very well. 

It took a few yarn store visits to find what I wanted, but I eventually purchased 300 grams of Sandnes Garn Sisu Superwash in Cardinal (shade 4228) from EweKnit, and one skein of Pro Lana Golden Socks Fjord 4-Fach (shade 181).  

 

Here's the sweater, which knitted up without difficulty. I made it in a size 3, which has a 36" bust. I did make the body longer than specified in the pattern. Christine isn't tall (I'd estimate her height at 5'3"), but she has a proportionately long torso, and the 20.5" length called for by the pattern would be too short on her, so I added one inch to the yoke length and two to the body length. I also added waist shaping. I've never measured Christine, but all of the pieces I've made for her have fit quite well. With knitwear, one can usually just eyeball the size.

This sweater was knitted from newly purchased yarn, and I had 30 grams of the red yarn and 60 grams of the variegated contrast yarn left over, which is a net stash increase of 90 grams. 

My fourth project of 2022 was an addition to my initial list of 14 projects. In the spring, when I was making my honorary niece Olivia a dress for her sixth birthday present, I decided I didn't like the idea of making it the purse out of the jersey fabric I'd used for the dress. It was a very stretchy fabric, and would require interfacing and interlining, which is a pain when one is making such a small item. I looked through my yarn stash to see what I had in the way of coordinating yarns that might be used for a knitted purse. I had a turquoise and a lime that were very similar to the stripes on the jersey. I did not have a fuchsia yarn, and would probably have reverted to the idea of a sewn purse rather than go to the trouble and expense of having to track down and buy a skein of yarn in that shade, but happily it occurred to me to check my box of embroidery floss. It turned out that I had some embroidery floss in a very similar shade, so the knitted purse concept was a go. 

 

 When knitting the purse, I used the Squircle pattern I have used a number of times before, and went with a reversal of the dress fabric's colourway: lime, with turquoise and fuchsia stripes in duplicate stitch. The lime yarn is a very soft yarn, so to give the purse a little more structure, I cut a circle of very stiff interfacing the size of the bottom of the bag, knitted a second bottom, and then stitched the second bottom inside the bottom of the bag, slipping the interfacing circle in between the two bottoms mid-process. The resulting purse coordinated pretty well with the dress, which you can see in this post. 

This little project used up 30 grams of stash yarn.

This next project was another that I planned on New Year's Eve 2021 in between swigs of homemade Bailey's. (Don't tell me knitters don't know how to party.) I'd picked out a pattern for my honorary niece Olivia's Christmas 2022 sweater the previous August, but when I was writing up my yarn shopping list for the coming year on New Year's Eve, I checked my stash to see if I had anything suitable.

 

This is the Sverrigsgade pattern, designed by Sanne Bjerregaard. It's a free pattern, it's quite strikingly attractive and visually interesting, and as multi-coloured striped patterns tend to be, it's an excellent stash buster. I love the colourway used in the sample pattern, and had rather hoped to replicate it, but after a look through my stash, I wound up going with the alternate palette I found there. When it came down to my paying what is for me a considerable chunk of money to buy the ideal yarn for this project, or using the suitable and attractive no-cost yarn from my stash, it was an easy call.  

I had in my storage box of DK yarn 200 grams of Premier Anti Pilling Everyday DK in Almond that I'd bought online from Mary Maxim in 2021 to make what would become my eighth project of 2022, and that proved not to be the right shade for my purpose when it arrived. I would have returned it, but the Mary Maxim customer service person told me it would cost me more to send it back than the refund would be, so I sighed resignedly, kept it, and simply ordered more in the right shade. I decided those two inadvertently purchased skeins would work quite well as the main colour for this design. I also had small amounts of red, wine, dark green, and kelly green DK yarn left over from other projects that I thought worked together well and went fairly well with the almond, and so would do for the contrast colours.

The completed sweater in a size eight. I'm pretty pleased with it. The colourway isn't bad at all for something put together out of odds and ends while not entirely sober. It has a Christmassy look, which is a plus for a Christmas present, but not so much so that it can't be worn all winter. It will also suit Olivia's colouring of brown hair, olive eyes, and faintly olive-tinged fair skin quite well. This pattern is well-written and knitted up without any problems. I was keeping an anxious eye on the red yarn, as I feared it might run out before the sweater was done, but it went the distance. I went with neutral buttons on the shoulder, as I couldn't seem to match any of the contrast colours in the sweater to anything on  Fabricland's button racks. 

When calculating the stash decrease/increase of this project, I counted the almond yarn as newly purchased yarn. I used 130 grams of the 200 grams to make the sweater, which meant there was a stash increase of 70 grams. But I used up 45 grams of red yarn, 60 grams of the wine, 50 grams of the kelly green, and 60 grams of the dark green while making this sweater, and those were all certainly stash yarns. Those stash yarns I used totalled 215 grams, and 215 grams less 70 grams is a net stash decrease of -145 grams.   

My grandnephew Bug turned nine in July 2022. Like a good knitter and a passable great-aunt, I began planning his birthday present sweater well in advance. Ravelry tells me I added the pattern I used for his sweater to my queue on August 26, 2021.  

The design I chose was the one you see pictured above, the imaginatively named 1208-02, by Sandnes Design. I've had my eye on this pattern since Bug was a preschooler and have always thought it had quite a bit of style. In December 2021, when Romni Wools was having its annual December sale, I bought the yarn for the project: Drops Karisma in Vert Mix (colour 50) for the main colour, and Light Pearl Gray (colour 72) for the contrast. I had to go with marbled gray buttons for the placket as the blue proved impossible to match. 

And here's the finished product, made in a size 10. The pattern wasn't the best written and I wound up having to redo the sleeve cap, armhole, and shoulder shaping a few times -- as well as recalculate and rewrite the directions -- before I got it right. But eventually the sweater was completed and I was pleased with the result. Bug received his birthday present in August, at my parents' 60th wedding anniversary party. He put it on to model it for us and then refused to take it off, despite repeated urgings from his mother, for what must have been close to an hour, even though the temperature couldn't have been much under 30 degrees Celsius. But hey, it was a brand new sweater and we all told Bug how handsome he looked in it, so who can blame him. (I've known many a grown man to be more susceptible to flattery than Bug was being that day.) It was a little big on him, but not unwearably so, and I consider that ideal as it means he can probably get two years of wear out of it rather than just one before he grows out of it. My niece told me at Christmas 2022 that the sweater had proved to be a favourite of Bug's and that he had worn it often.

The lovely tweedy blue colour did really suit Bug. He has light brown hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, and blue is very much his colour. This was the ninth sweater I'd made him in his life and seven of the nine were blue or partly blue. I keep telling myself that I need to make Bug's sweaters in a variety of colours, that he'll get tired of always getting blue sweaters, but then I go yarn shopping and see a beautiful blue yarn that would look soooo good on him, and I just can't resist. Oh well, I have used a variety of shades of blue and different designs, and I doubt Bug feels like he's getting the same sweater from me every year.     

This project was entirely made of newly purchased yarn, and the yarn left over from it constitutes a stash increase of +50 grams.  

Several years ago, after being forced to discard a worn-out brown cotton thrift shop top that had been a very useful, reliable piece while I had it, I decided that I'd replace it with a hand-knitted brown cotton top that I could wear with a number of my skirts, shorts, and trousers in summer. I searched Ravelry for a suitable pattern in a fingering weight yarn, couldn't find one, and promptly decided I would just have to design one myself. I envisioned a sleeveless top with a stockinette body and an Art Nouveau-style panel of stitchwork running up the front.

Then I needed yarn. I looked at similar projects on Ravelry to get an idea of how much yarn I needed, and concluded that this project would call for about 200 grams, and that I should get 250 grams to be on the safe side. But I had some difficulty in finding the dark brown cotton fingering yarn I wanted. I checked all my usual go-to yarn stores (Romni Wools, Ewe Knit, Michaels, Mary Maxim, Spinrite Factory Outlet), and none of them had a cotton fingering in the shade of brown I wanted. Brown can be a difficult colour to work with, as it comes in so many shades. I often can't find the kind of rich dark chocolate brown that I use as a base neutral in my wardrobe, and even when I can, it often comes in an unfortunate tone -- purplish, pinkish, or greyish -- that does not look right with the other, autumnal-tone items from my wardrobe. But I was sure that the yarn I wanted must be out there somewhere, and I turned to Ravelry's invaluable yarn search function to find it. Eventually I tracked down a yarn that was just right: Knit Picks Comfy Fingering in Coffee. I always find ordering online to be a bit of a crap shoot, because I can't be sure the yarn I order will have the right colour tone and a nice feel to it, and so I placed my order with some trepidation, but upon arrival, this yarn proved to be exactly what I wanted. The colour was just right and it was a lovely yarn to work with and, true to its name, comfy to wear.   

Then I had the yarn, a vision of what the top would look like, and good intentions... and the yarn just sat there from the time I received it in June 2019 until June 2022. At that point I decided I wanted to wear the top to my parents' 60th anniversary party in August with one particular skirt of mine, and that it was time to get cracking on this project. Realistically, I wouldn't have time to fuss around and create my own stitchwork pattern for the front panel, but I had five different knitting stitch reference books, and surely I could find a suitable stitch pattern in one of those. Accordingly I went through all of those five books. I looked for something that had an Art Nouveau feel to it. Eventually I settled on pattern #1 from the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible by Hitomi Shida. 

And here's the completed top. It took me much longer to knit than I hoped, though I suppose that's to be expected when there's no pattern and one is just figuring out the mechanics as one goes along. The back, which is plain stockinette, knitted up very quickly and without issue, but I had some difficulty figuring out some of the instructions for the lace panel for the front. There was one particular stitch arrangement I just couldn't seem to figure out from the instructions. After a week of being effectively stalled in one place, I got the hang of it and began to progress again. I finished the front, did the seaming, and then I knitted the neckband, only to find I had picked up too many stitches for it, so much so I didn't even bother to try it on. I ripped the neckband out and did it again, and this time discovered that while the neckband was fine in itself, I had made the neckline too low for my or anyone else's comfort. It wasn't indecent, but I am 49 now and it is time for me to start covering it up and putting it away. I took out the neckband and the shoulder seams and ripped the front back to where I began the neckline, and added another repeat of the lace pattern before shaping the neckline and reknitting each side to the shoulders. I re-seamed the shoulders and put the neckband in again, then moved onto the armhole bands, where again my first attempt involved too many stitches. I ripped out and redid it with 112 stitches instead of 128, and this time it worked, so from then on it was clear sailing to do the other armhole band and weave in the ends of yarn. I am pleased with the finished piece. The shaping is good, the lace panel is very pretty, and the yarn I used is perfect. 

The jersey print skirt that you see in the photo above used to be a dress, which I had originally made circa 2005. Thirteen years later the dress had become dated and too young for me and I no longer wanted to wear it, but as documented in this post about three skirts that I made out of former dresses, I loved the fabric so much I couldn't bear to throw it out, and in 2018 I cut it down into a skirt that I can wear until it's worn out. I am so happy to now have this knitted top to wear with it, as they work very well together. I had hoped to wear this outfit to my parents' diamond anniversary in August, but with all the difficulties I ran into, and given that I was also concurrently working on Bug's birthday sweater, which had to take precedence, it was not finished in time. Instead I paired the jersey skirt with a dark brown silk top I had sewed for myself in 2018. That combination made a nice outfit too, even if cotton would have been better than silk for such a warm day.

This project took 190 grams of yarn, which left me with a stash increase of 60 grams. 

And now we come to the eighth and last project of the year. 

Shortly after my honorary niece Olivia was born in 2016, I came up with the idea of making her a doll and a little wardrobe of outfits and accessories for the doll. I decided to save the idea until she was old enough to really enjoy and appreciate having a doll like that, and I designated four as the ideal age. Olivia turned four in 2020, but I didn't get to the project at all that year. In 2021, when Olivia  turned five, I began doing some work on the project, but I didn't get that far. In early September of 2022, when Olivia was nearly six and a half, I began working steadily on the doll project with the idea that Olivia would get it for Christmas that year, but though I spent four months straight working on it, the end of the year found the doll knitted but not assembled, and three of the outfits not quite finished. It wasn't until June 2023 that I finally finished making the doll and her wardrobe of seven outfits, and then in July 2023, I visited my friend Lindsie's home for two days for the first time since October 2019, and gave her seven-year-old daughter the doll and its accompanying accoutrements. I suppose seven isn't such a bad age for such a gift -- Olivia should still have about three doll-enjoying years ahead of her -- and at least the thing finally got done.  

All through my doll-making endeavour, I thought of the doll provisionally as "Little Olivia", with the expectation that Olivia would want to name her doll herself. I looked forward to seeing what that name would be, and was gratified when Olivia promptly named her doll... wait for it... Rainbow Sparkle Unicorn-Animals. Lindsie tried unsuccessfully to get Olivia to go with a nice Scottish name, such as Isla, but while that would have been a pretty and suitable name, Olivia's choice is peak seven-year-old girl in a way that makes me crack up whenever I think of it. And, now that Miss Unicorn-Animals is finally finished, duly named, and enjoying life with her mommy, let's take a tour through the process of making her and of her completed wardrobe.  

When I was in the early stages of planning this project, I kept an eye out for suitable knitted doll patterns and ideas for its wardrobe. I set up a Pinterest board entitled "Little Olivia and Her Wardrobe" to keep track of the cute knitted dolls and doll outfits and other ideas I came across. When it came time to plan more definitely, I searched Ravelry for knitted doll patterns. Its database contained some real cuties, but I soon zeroed in on the "Knit a Teddy" constellation of designs by Sarah Gasson. Gasson has designed an entire collection of stuffed dolls, bears, cats, bunnies, etc., with numerous outfits designed to fit them all (the stuffed toys are all the same size through the body and the patterns have options for adding tail and ear openings if one is knitting for a stuffed animal). The dolls are darling, with hair that can be styled in multiple ways, and the outfits are amazing, with outfits for every day as well as a number of theme outfits. One can start by knitting the basic doll and then proceed to make any number of outfits. If you want to make a cheerleader, firefighter, nurse, doctor, paramedic, police officer, soccer, golfing, graduation, elf, fairy, bride, superhero, princess, Christmas, or Halloween outfit, Sarah Gasson has you, or at least the stuffed toy you've made, covered.   

Prior to beginning this project, I'd been wanting to make a doll and a wardrobe for it for awhile. Whenever I did my weekly tour of the thrift shops in my neighbourhood, I would often see an array of those "collectable" porcelain dolls (i.e., of the type intended more for display than for playing with) on the shelves among the knickknacks, and I would think about how much fun it would be buy one, take it home, and then research, design, and make some period accurate wardrobe for it as a gift for one of the little girls in my life. And then I would remind myself sternly that I have very limited physical and mental energy due to my chronic fatigue issues, that I'm not making a living, that its costs would add up, that there is so much that needs doing around my house, and that I don't like sewing or knitting in the very small scale at all, and I keep walking. But then the same scenario would play out again the next week.

This particular doll and wardrobe project seemed like an acceptable way to scratch that "I want to make a doll wardrobe" itch. I'd only be working on it in the evening when I don't have the energy to do much else anyway, and it wouldn't take much research, or much money. It would be easy and fun to plan it and come up with little creative touches for it, it wasn't on such a small scale that I would mind working on it, and it would be a good way to use up my boxful of odds and ends of DK yarn. 

So, I bought the Sarah Gasson doll pattern, and some of the outfit patterns, and got started.  

The above photo is the sample shot from the Pink Stripy Dress design. I wanted this doll to have some everyday type outfits as well as some theme outfits, and this was one of the first of its everyday outfits. 

I wanted the doll, or Rainbow as I suppose I should call her, to look as much like Olivia as possible. Little girls mother their dolls, and they tend to especially like having a doll that looks like them. This doll's facial features being set by the pattern, I could only make the doll look like Olivia by simulating Olivia's colouring. As I said above when talking about Olivia's Christmas 2022 sweater, Olivia, who is a strikingly beautiful little girl, has gorgeous long brown curly hair with lots of blond and lighter brown highlights, as well as a slightly reddish tone to it, olive-coloured eyes, and a slight olive tone to her skin. I used two different shades of brown yarn for Rainbow's hair and tried to choose skin and eye colour yarns that were as close to Olivia's colouring as I could get them. The result, while not photo realism accurate, wasn't bad. Lindise commented that the doll really did look like Olivia.

I goofed on the hair by knotting it much too thickly over the back of the doll's head. The pattern called for 50 grams of yarn to be used on the hair, and I used 110 grams of yarn. I suppose it's not such a bad thing for Rainbow to have what we'll call very luxuriant hair, but it's not as easy to style the doll's hair when it's this thick, so if I make another doll like this one, I will not put as much hair on it. 

The body of this doll was knitted from a single 100 gram skein of Premier Anti-Pilling Everyday DK in Linen, which I purchased for this project. (As mentioned above when I was describing Olivia's Christmas sweater, I ordered 200 grams of the same yarn in Almond first, then decided it was way too yellowy to work as the doll's skin tone, but I counted that as new yarn for the Christmas sweater project so I won't add it to the tally for this one.) For the hair, I used up 40 grams of Sirdar Country Style DK in 530 Chocolate that I had in my stash, and when that proved not to be enough to cover the back of the doll's head, I bought two 50 gram skeins of Debbie Bliss Rialto DK in 23005 Brown. The eyes were done with a unmeasurably small amount of green yarn of unknown make that I had in my stash, and I used embroidery floss that I had on hand to do the eyelashes and mouth. When the doll was done, I had 25 grams of the new linen yarn and 35 grams of the new brown yarn left, and when I subtract the 40 grams of stash brown yarn I used, I find that this project added 20 just grams of yarn to my stash.    

This striped dress, bloomers, and shoes outfit was made entirely from stash yarn. I made the dress from spring green and coral yarns, which used up all the coral. I then made the bloomers and the shoes in the same green with cream trim, and to pull the outfit's colour scheme together, I crocheted a cream flower with a green centre, and tacked it to the waistline of the dress.  

I forgot to weigh my odds and ends of stash yarn before I began this outfit, but it weighed 120 grams when completed, so that is a stash decrease of -120 grams.

The second "everyday" outfit that I picked out for Rainbow (after some deliberation, because there are so many cute outfits one can hardly choose) was Sarah Gasson's Flower Pinafore design. 

I planned this outfit around an unidentifiable skein of dark green yarn that had been sitting in my DK yarn box for years and years. I had some red and some assorted cream yarn that went well with the green, so I went with that.

A shot of the sweater and bloomers by themselves, since the sweater design isn't visible under the pinafore. Fortunately Olivia will be able to mix and match her doll's outfits somewhat.

This outfit was made entirely from stash yarn, and weighed 180 grams when completed, so that's a stash decrease of -180 grams. 

Olivia's father's last name is Wallace, he is of Scottish ancestry, and he and his family are quite into their Scottish heritage. They talk about it frequently at family gatherings. I asked Lindsie if they do face-painting and kilt-lifting at their family gatherings as William Wallace's men do in Braveheart, and she said, "Thankfully, no." When it comes to embracing his heritage, Lindsie's father has only gone so far as taking up the bagpipes, and marching in town parades, all kilted up, with whatever little bagpipe regiment he's in. 

When I saw the Highland Dress design among Sarah Gasson's collection, I decided it should be one of Rainbow's outfits, because it would be a nice way for Olivia to celebrate her Scottish heritage. It's adorable as is, but when I made it I did end up making some tweaks. 

The first change I made was to the tartan pattern itself. I thought it would be nice to make the doll's kilt, sash, and tam in a Wallace tartan if I could. I googled the Wallace tartan, and found that I could get the kilt's tartan design quite close to the modern dress Wallace tartan you see pictured above by simply changing the colours from red, green, and white, to red, black, and yellow.  

I was pleased with my version of the Wallace tartan. 

Tweak number two was the result of my thinking, wouldn't it be cute if the kilt had a little kilt pin in it? Some online and in person comparison shopping later, I concluded I couldn't buy a kilt pin of the right size unless I bought a hundred or so of them, so next I looked into the possibility of making a single kilt pin of the right size. In the end, I made one in fifteen minutes using this very helpful video tutorial. 

I haven't worn a kilt since my elementary school uniform days, so I did some more googling on the topic of correct kilt pin placement. From what I understand, a kilt pin is supposed to be worn clasp down on the right side, and two inches from the bottom hem. I adhered faithfully to the first two stipulations, but had to cheat on the "two inches from the bottom" rule because that would have put the kilt pin more than halfway up the doll's kilt.   

 

Tweak number three came about because I didn't have any silver or gray yarn suitable for the buttons, didn't want to buy a whole new skein of it when I needed such a tiny amount, and didn't particularly like look of the crocheted ones anyway. I used some tooled metal buttons from my button tin that I thought were just perfect for the jacket.

Tweaks four and five happened when it occurred to me after I'd made the bow tie that Sarah Gasson's design was the masculine version of traditional highland dress. I did a little googling to find out what the feminine version entailed. Did women even wear sporrans, sashes, and bow ties in traditional highland dress for women? According to my googling results (and I could easily be wrong about any of this!), in traditional highland dress, women don't wear sporrans or bow ties, but  they do wear sashes and shawls, and sometimes lace jabots. I nixed the sporran and the bow tie that the pattern called for, made the sash, and cobbled together a lace jabot out of a few scraps of lace I found in my ribbon cannister, using some photos of lace jabots that I found online for reference. I thought the result was, if not up to lace jabot industry standards, pretty decent as a finishing touch on a doll for a seven-year-old.

The finished highland dress outfit. Olivia will be able to take Rainbow along when she goes to see her father play bagpipes in her town's parade, and sit her up at the table when she and her parents are hosting a Wallace family gathering. 

When I was visiting Lindsie and we were watching Olivia with her doll, Lindsie asked me which of the seven outfits was my favourite. I said I didn't know if I had a favourite, but that the Scottish outfit was the one I was proudest of. It wasn't until I was writing this post that I realized that I totally forgot to make the flashings for the socks, which is seriously undercutting that sense of pride, sigh. Well, I suppose if it bothers me enough, I can make some, take them with me when I go visit Lindsie in October, and sew them in at that point.

For this outfit, I used some white yarn I had on hand, and I also purchased some skeins of Patons Astra DK in Cardinal, Black, and Maize Yellow. I had 40 grams of the black left, and 10 grams of the yellow. I used up the remaining red in one of the other doll outfits, so I won't count that in my tally for this outfit. But I have no idea how much white yarn I used, because it seems I forgot to weigh it before I started work. I have a note on one of my patterns that says a completed sweater of this type weighed 50 grams, so I think it's safe to say that I would have used at least 60 grams of white to make the shirt and socks for this outfit. I'm going to estimate that this outfit resulted in a net decrease of -10 grams 

And we come now to another too-adorable outfit of Sarah Gasson's. This is the Christmas Jumper design. How freaking cute are those little Timberland-style boots? And this is one of those (rare!) knitting design samples that has such a perfect colour scheme that I just have to replicate it.

My version of the Christmas outfit, with which I am very pleased. For this outfit, I used the remaining red yarn from the Scottish highland dress outfit, and I bought more Patons Astra DK in Cardinal, Navy, and White. For the reindeer face and antlers and the boots I used tan and brown yarns from my stash.

When I was done this ensemble, I found I had used 15 grams of the brown, 10 grams of the tan, and that I had 25 grams of the new red and 5 grams of the new navy left. (Whatever white yarn I had left went into an upcoming outfit.) So, that's a +5 gram stash increase.   

This is the Snowflake Gown ensemble from Sarah Gasson's collection. I decided to make this one because one of my nicknames for Olivia is "Princess Olivia of Bolivia". (No, Olivia is not any part Bolivian and yes I am aware that Bolivia is a democratic republic -- I just happen to like the rhyming aspect of it.)

I had to improvise a new colour scheme for Princess Rainbow's outfit out of the offerings at Michaels. I thought a white and a pretty soft second colour would be a nice combination, but they didn't have many options. A lot of the inexpensive acrylic colours are downright crude and ugly. After some traipsing back and forth through their aisles, I bought Loops & Threads Baby Cuddles in Lilac, and Loops & Threads Snuggly Wuggly in White. I also used a very small amount of a light green yarn from my stash for the device on the bodice. 

The tiara is supposed to be sewn to the doll's head, but I didn't want to do that, as the tiara would definitely not go with all, or for that matter any, of Rainbow's other outfits. Instead, I knitted the tiara twice and stitched it together at the ends, turning it into a crown that could be worn and taken off. I also raided my beading box and found some amethyst chips and some purple stone beads, and sewed them onto the crown. I wish I had found a more artistic arrangement of the gems on the crown, but again, and as I often reminded myself while working on this project, this is just a doll for a little girl, not a PhD level dissertation in costuming.   

I used up the white I had left over from this project on my last two projects and I had just 20 grams of the lilac left, so that's a stash increase of  +20 grams for this princess outfit.

Almost from the beginning of this project, I planned to make the doll some sort of nightwear, such as a nightgown and cap, so that Olivia would be able to put her baby properly to bed at night. When I saw this Onesie pattern in Sarah Gasson's Ravelry store, I knew it had to be one of my selections.

For this pattern I used the white I had bought for some of the outfits you've already seen, and some medium blue, light blue, and old rose I had in my stash, as well as a very small amount of cream yarn and a little dark brown embroidery floss for the detailing on the teddy bear slippers. I had to be a little creative about making the odds and ends of yarn I had picked for this onesie suffice to finish the job. My first attempt at striping this sleeper had me running out of colours so quickly I knew halfway in that I'd never be able to finish, so I ripped out what I had done and began again with a more white-dependent stripe pattern. When it turned out that I didn't have enough of the old rose and light blue left to stripe the sleeves, I made them plain white.

I'm pretty happy with the result, and so was Olivia. When I was visiting Lindsie for those two days, Olivia undressed Rainbow and changed her into her onesie and slippers before carrying her off to bed on both nights, and then she would have her doll dressed for the day in one of her other outfits by the time I came downstairs in the morning. Lindsie told me via email that Olivia has continued to do this since my visit.

For this project I used 15 grams of medium blue, 20 grams of light blue, and 30 grams of old rose, so we'll call that a stash decrease of -65 grams.

  

This was the last outfit I made. For this one I used the basic sweater, pants, and slippers instructions from my other patterns, and improvised the rest of the design. It was intended to be a sort of Valentine's Day outfit, but it's not so theme-oriented that it doesn't work as just a cute outfit for every day. Again, I had to be a bit creative to make the yarn I had suffice, which is why the pants look a little on the skimpy side. I wish I'd made the last few rows of knitting on the slippers in rib instead of garter, as it would have made their fit more secure.

For this outfit I used the last of the white I bought for the other doll outfits, and (at a guess, because I don't seem to have documented this) 45 grams of blue yarn and 15 grams of burgundy yarn from my stash. I had nothing but a handful of scraps of the three colours left when I finished, so that's a -60 gram stash decrease.

Another idea that occurred to me early on in the project planning phase was that Olivia would need a place to keep all of her doll's clothing and belongings. My first thought was that I would get her a little wooden box, and paint and decorate it in such a way that she could still enjoy using the box after she'd outgrown the doll. I kept an eye out for a suitable box when doing my weekly thrift shop tour, and eventually bought one. But once I began working on the doll's wardrobe, it soon became clear that the box was far too small for such a purpose, so much so that I don't understand how I ever could have thought it would be adequate. (I stowed the box in a drawer in the attic for a few years, with the idea that I would be using it for some other project eventually, and I have since indeed come up with a good use for it, which I'll be posting about by the end of this year.)

With the box idea ruled out, my next thought was that I would make Olivia a tote bag for her doll's things, which was an even better idea than a box because she could so easily carry it around with her. And I knew immediately what fabric I wanted to use for it. Back in 2021, I had made Olivia a quilt, and when I went fabric shopping for that project, my first choice of fabric was the one you see depicted above. I thought those interlocking Os in an olive green colour made it the perfect fabric quilt for her. To my disappointment, there wasn't enough of the fabric left on the bolt for the quilt. I did find another pretty fabric for the quilt that I was happy with, but that disappointment was clearly still lurking in my mind, because when I came up with the idea for a tote bag, I was so glad that I had a chance to use that perfect first fabric for something else for Olivia. Back to the fabric warehouse place I went, and I dug around determinedly until I found the interlocking Os fabric. 

 

And here is Rainbow Sparkle Unicorn-Animals with all of her things packed and ready to go to meet her mommy for the first time. I put each of the outfits in a separate zippered plastic bag so that Olivia would know what items were intended to go with what other items, although I don't expect they'll stay that way.

 This was a decent stash-busting project. Let's review the numbers:

• doll +20 grams
• striped dress outfit -120 grams
• pinafore outfit  -180 grams
• Scottish outfit -10 grams
• Christmas outfit  +5 grams
• princess outfit  +20 grams
• onesie and slippers -65 grams
• Valentine's Day outfit -60 grams

According to my math, that's 390 gram stash decrease. Not bad at all, and I definitely saw the difference in my DK stash box, with a number of odds and ends that had been sitting there for years finally used up. 

This was a seriously time intensive project on a scale I will almost certainly never attempt again. I think this project must have taken a total of six months of my knitting time. Admittedly, I am toying with the idea of making my grandniece Holly a doll like Rainbow in a few years, but she'll only get two or three outfits with it, not seven, and then maybe I'll make her one outfit a year to add to her collection until she's ten or so. And... I will be making Olivia more outfits for Rainbow, but again, it'll be just one a year, and only for a few more years. I also no longer pine over the porcelain dolls I see in thrift stores in the same way, so I consider that itch to be successfully scratched.

And that's the end of my 2022 projects. I didn't do so badly to (almost) complete eight projects given that the eighth one essentially constituted eight projects. And when I tally up the year end stash increase/decrease, I find my yarn stash decreased by -555 grams. Not bad!