Our Doll Family Has Expanded ... And Sherwood Sweater, Day 6

I haven't shown you yet who last joined our doll family via Goodwill ...

Samantha! 

She's a Pleasant Company doll, so our local Goodwill didn't think she was a "real" American Girl. (Yes, that's what the sales lady told my husband when he asked to look at her in the glass case.) As a result, they marked her $25 less than they charge for the ones marked "American Girl" on their necks. I had a coupon that made her $5 less, so she was actually cheaper than I could get her on Ebay.

She was quite dirty, but it was all surface dirt and all on her vinyl. I'd guess that her original owner never cleaned her for fear of ruining her.

This is what she looked like before I cleaned her.
I'm not sure if you can see the dirt, but it gave her that "old doll" look.

One of her legs is a little loose, but I'm not going to bother with it until it falls off completely. It's an easy enough fix, but re-stuffing her and getting her head on tightly again are a bit more difficult.

Yes, I'm now the 37-year-old proud owner of two American Girl dolls. I tell my family that I'm going to enjoy them now with my daughter, in a few years I'll enjoy them with my grandchildren, and then they can give them to me all over again when I'm senile and wanting to play with dolls. :)

Sherwood Sweater, Day 6


I started on the first sleeve today and got over halfway through it. (I stopped at chart Row 60, but that was only about 50 rows of knitting.) The was pretty good progress for the little time I had to devote to it.

AG Doll Find and Sherwood Sweater, Day 5

I have to share a recent dollar store doll find with you. I got a pack of 20 of these Solo-style party cups at Dollar Tree recently. Aren't they just perfect? I've also seen them at Wal-Mart for $1.97 if you're desperate for them and your Dollar Tree doesn't have them. By all means, don't buy them from an online seller who will probably charge you $2 or more (plus postage) for 4 cups! (Yes, I've seen ridiculous prices like that before.)

As for my Sherwood sweater, I finished the front and joined it at the shoulders.

Some AG doll things and Sherwood Sweater, Days 3 & 4

I haven't blogged about my daughter's (and my) American Girl dolls in a little while. On Saturday, I finally asked my husband to spray paint the wooden piece we've been using as Paige's (my daughter's My AG) trundle bed. I was planning to do it, but I've never spray painted before and kept putting it off.

It started out as this:

I got it from a thrift store for $4 awhile back. I had been planning to make it a couch, but then my daughter told me she wanted a trundle bed for her doll like the AG version. This has a compartment for the second mattress underneath, so it's perfect.

Ugly as it is, she actually used it for awhile like this. Hey, it worked ...

But now it looks so much better:

And here it is with the bedding on it (but without the trundle mattress yet):

The paint job wasn't perfect because it was so dark to start with, but I told my husband that was just fine. It looks quite shabby chic like this, and I really like it! So does my daughter.

Sweater Day Three

I finished 18 more rows on the sweater today, bringing me to my second time through Row 52. I've already split for the armholes:

Sweater Day Four

I finished the back today:

Knitting: Sherwood Sweater, Day 2

I completed 17 more rows today on the Sherwood sweater, and I'm almost to the armholes. I'm really enjoying this sweater!

Knitting: Sherwood Sweater, Day 1

I decided to make the Sherwood sweater by Angela Hahn next. (It's free, as are most of the patterns I use.) It's already seamless, so I don't have to convert it. That's a really good thing, too, if you take a look at the chart for this sweater:

Yes, the symbols on the chart are as small as they look - maybe even smaller - and my eyesight is about twenty years older than I am. But once you start into it, it's actually not as complicated or scary as it looks. It gets pretty predictable after a few rows, but it's still interesting enough to not be boring.

I'm making this in the 10/12 size, since that's the amount of yarn I have to work with. I'm using Lion brand Pound of Love. I know a lot of knitters who turn up their noses at acrylic yarns, but not me.

First of all, this was given to me. You really can't beat FREE, especially when you're working with it just for the fun of making something anyway.

Secondly, I'm not independently wealthy. If I were to buy all natural fibers for all the sweaters I make, I wouldn't be able to make any at all. A child's sweater can easily turn into a $50+ project. I choose to feed my family instead, thank you. (And yes, that's half my grocery money for the week, since the prices at the stores have nearly doubled in the last 2-3 years.)

Thirdly, I enjoy the process of knitting. I'm one of those people who just might knit something and rip it out to re-knit it again if I was stranded somewhere for a long time and had no way of getting more yarn.

Lastly, I actually like the feel of most modern acrylic yarns. Yes, there are some nasty vintage acrylics that I just can't (and won't) work with, but those are few and far between.

So if you're the world's biggest yarn snob, I may not be your favorite knitter to "follow". If I knit something from a natural yarn, it's going to be yarn recycled from a thrift store sweater. I can afford that! So please don't think that I don't like natural fibers. I adore them! I just can't afford them (or justify the cost) in any other medium than recycled from thrift store sweaters. And when this stash of acrylic is all knitted up, I have a HUGE stash of recycled natural fibers to start working with.

Anyway, back to my sweater ... I finished 55 rows today.  I don't usually figure out how many stitches that is per day, but this one was easy. There are 200 stitches to a row, so that was 11,000 stitches. It sure didn't seem like that many!

Knitting: Cables for Kids, Day 5

It's done! Now that the sleeves are on, it doesn't look quite so squat. But still, I could wear this sweater, and it's supposed to be a child's size 12! I guess it's a layering sweater ...

Knitting: Cables for Kids, Day 4

I finished the back on a Row 6.

The fronts were easy enough, and I got it all joined at the shoulders and the neckband knitted on.

At this point, I'm beginning to think the ribbed basketweave must really draw the sides in. It's almost comically wide. I love the design, though, so I'm persevering. (I'll probably knit it again in another yarn with the ribbed basketweave on the sides just to see if I'm right.)

Now to the sleeves ... I tried reversing the directions and picking up 63 stitches around the armhole, but that was way too many stitches. It looked like the sleeves were gathered into the armhole. So then I tried picking up 3 stitches for every 4 rows (the usual consensus on how many to pick up), which gave me 56 stitches. It was still way too many. So I picked up 1 stitch for every 2 rows (a total of 38 stitches), and it finally looked right.

At my gauge of about 4 rows/1", I'll be working about 54 rows before the ribbing. Since I'm starting out with about the same number of stitches as I should end with, I won't be doing any decreases.

All of this trial and error took long enough that I could have finished at least one sleeve. But I didn't. I only barely started the first one before bed. Oh well! Sometimes mistakes (like seed stitch where it should be ribbed basketweave) create more problems than you realized. This is just a good learning experience - learning how to adapt as you go because you were too stubborn to rip out 10" of detailed knitting when you realized your mistake. :)