Dollshe sweater is finished!

So, that commission for a friend?  That I’m going to write up a pattern for?  Finished, blocked, and “photographed” this morning!  I say “photographed” because none of my dolls are remotely in the same size category as the Dollshe men (the doll this is for is an older version of these guys, so he looks a bit different, but the same height and style).  My closest in height, Vasilisa (who’s off limits anyway as she’s visiting my sister to have some pants fitted), is a mere 57cm tall.  Dollshe dolls are 70cm.  Add to that that they’re freakishly skinny for their height, and…there really is no parallel.  But I hate photographing garments lying flat on the windowsill.  They are meant to be filled out, three-dimensional.  So I asked Edik if he would give me a hand.

Edik is 43cm tall, a little over half the height of Sascha, who will eventually receive this turtleneck.  It fits Edik’s torso a lot better than I thought it would, proving that Dollshe guys are crazy skinny.

I’d also just like to note that my camera was unfortunately having trouble with the colour – too many reds, too much sun!  I wish I knew enough about photo manipulation to even things out a bit – as it stands, this next pic is the best shot of the actual colour of the sweater.  Edik’s hair is better represented in subsequent photos, though.  Hmm, maybe I should have pulled out his old brown wig for this shoot.  Too late now!

Sadly, the oversize of the sweater obscures some of the sweater’s features, like the ribbing down the sides that caught my fancy as a very masculine detail.  You get a hint of it at the shoulder, though, and a sense of the tiny stitches that went into this gargantuan beast.  Hopefully Sascha’s owner will get some better shots of him in it that I can post.

So now that I’ve knitted the sample, I’ll write up the pattern over the next few days.  I will probably eventually make it available as a free Ravelry download, but I’d like to be able to include proper photos before I do.

Another soon-to-be free pattern is coming for MiniGem/Barbie size, too!

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, I just got on Tumblr.  So far, I have spent a lot of time looking at fashion blogs, mostly girly Asian styles but some Western ones as well.  Lots of inspiration there!  I generally love bright colours, but as I was browsing, I was really digging the creams, beiges, and dusty pinks I saw on Korean and Japanese girls and I really wanted to design something similar for Suzuha.  And so was born the February Dolly Skirt!  Done in Colourmart cobweb silk from my eBay purchase years ago, it’s going to have a lace over-skirt (which you can see in progress in the photo) using Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Gull Lace as in the February Lady (& original Baby) Sweater, and a solid underskirt, possibly in a contrasting colour.  It’s pretty speedy so far – just a few hours and I’m most of the way done the lace, although the ribbing probably took an equal amount of time for a small fraction of the length.  Anyway, I hope to have this pattern available in a week or two.