I seem to be finding a lot of ways to avoid setting in the sleeves of my black cardigan in Kidsilk Haze. That’s certainly not a job for the evening or even one particularly suited to the dark days we’ve been having. I need to turn on a bright light, buckle down and get it done.

But in the meantime, I’ve been knitting dresses for the girls. I saw a picture on social media of someone’s knitted dresses for fashion dolls. They were unspeakably cute with fluffy skirts, knit of novelty yarn. She said she was using a free pattern, so off I went to hunt down options. I chose #146 from Sticka till Barbie as my base pattern, then made a bunch of modifications. Mine needed to fit vintage Barbie with her curves and the existing pattern had pretty much a straight bodice. I added decreases and increases. I also modified the instructions to knit the dress in the round, and made the increases/decreases mirror each other because that makes me happy.

Here’s the listing for the Sticka till Barbie pattern on Ravelry.

You can find the site on the Wayback Machine – here’s the page with patterns 101 to 150.

And here are the girls, posing in a diorama-in-progress that I’m making for the 16″ girls:

The diorama, of course, is another timesink, but a lot of fun. I like working in the foamboard – it’s easy to cut and light, and the gratification is almost instant.

The gift boxes are from an Etsy vendor who sells printables. It’s right here. They are a bit fiddly to assemble, which is why I’ve put together just two even though I bought this almost four years ago. So cute, though, and they fold up so precisely.

Here’s a better look at the dresses.

For these skirts, I used an eyelash yarn called Bernat Boa. (That’s a Ravelry link.) This yarn is discontinued, but I found my little stash at the thrift store. The bodices are knit of fingering yarns – the black is an acrylic baby yarn, the purple is leftover MadTosh. I made the skirt longer for the purple one (15 rows before decreasing instead of 12). The bodice looks longer on that one because the articulated Silkstone is thinner and taller than vintage B.

It’s interesting how the same yarn can feel different in different colours. That always mystifies me. The purple Boa doesn’t feel as silky as the black and red. I remember a lot of colours of this yarn, so will keep checking the thrift store for more. (I also have some variegated pink, but no fingering weight to match.)

I think the original pattern was knit of something more like a fringe yarn than this eyelash yarn, because the skirt isn’t as puffy in the pattern picture. I have some Lion Brand Fun Fur (also a thrift store find) so will try that out next.

That’s a link to the Lion Brand website – how lovely for a manufacturer keeps the link live after the yarn is discontinued! Here’s a Ravelry link so you can see what other knitters have made with it. I hopped into the advance search and sorted for doll clothes – sure enough, there are a few versions of this dress.

These are also like potato chips. It’s hard to knit just one. I need to find something to go with that pink, and try out the other yarn…