Japanese Books

Posted on January 20, 2026 by Deborah Cooke

Things have been quiet here this month, as I’ve been deciding how to go forward. At the end of last year, I discovered that several of my pictures of my dolls were being used on scam sites. I had thought that taking mediocre pictures would keep them from being stolen, but evidently that’s not so – now they look “authentic”. As an author, I have a whole lot of issues with the general dissolution of copyright and its protections, so hmm. As much as I love sharing my progress and results with others, I’m not interested in providing anything to aid scammers or pirates. This is the reason why I’ve never published any patterns or designs for dolls.

I did treat myself to some Japanese books this year and will share that with you today. Again, copyright is a concern – there are people on Etsy selling digital editions of many of these books, sometimes even with a translation by Google, but I doubt these are licensed digital or English editions. The beauty of Japanese craft books is that they’re so thoroughly illustrated that you can follow the directions even if you don’t read Japanese – plus buying the actual print book supports the creator and his/her copyright.

This first book is Doll Knit by Mieko Watanabe, for 20 – 22cm Obitsu dolls. You can find her on Instagram right here. The knits are detailed and very cute. The knits are all charted, so you don’t have to read Japanese to follow the instructions. They’re sized for the Obitsu dolls but fit the current MTM regular Barbie pretty well.

The big challenge is finding yarn substitutes. The designer has used yarns from a Japanese company called Puppy which aren’t available here. There is a Kidsilk Haze equivalent, so that’s easily replaced, but otherwise, not so much. I used Knit Picks Palette for the fair isle cloak and it’s slightly too heavy – I got gauge but the garment is thicker and stiffer than would be ideal.

The best match so far for the Puppy 3-ply is old 3-ply Kroy Socks, so I’m rummaging in my odds and ends for more of that. It does looks as if Holst Garn Supersoft would be a good substitute for the 3-ply, and it comes in shade packs, with five small balls in coordinated colours. I’ll make a road trip to a LYS that stocks this yarn to see it. The 2-ply Puppy is a lace weight, so I’ll try those patterns with some odds and ends in my stash. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a lace pack of many little skeins in different colours.

I also want to get out my crochet needle and try at least one of those adorable hats.

Next is a sewing book of doll clothes, also for 20 cm dolls including Blythe dolls. I think this is called Tournesol (which is French for sunflower). It’s by Satomi Takei, who can be found on IG right here. These have the usual aesthetic of Blythe doll patterns – lace and petticoats and tiny florals, straw bags and hats – although the fashions are shown on other dolls too. Again, the book is beautifully photographed.

I tried a few of the patterns and they more-or-less fit the MTM regular Barbies – the designs are more like little girl dresses and I’m not sure I like the look on my B girls. There is a pattern for a kimono, which is a tempting project.

Finally, an accessories book from Dolly Dolly Books, although the other two books also have patterns for accessories.

That purse on the cover is what sold me. The instructions for that bag cover seven pages and I’m determined to make one. The author is Taeko Sekiguchi, who has designed a lot of beautifully detailed clothing for dolls. It’s very inspiring to see the work of people who stretch higher.

I bought the books from Pomadour on Etsy. This shop ships promptly from Japan and packs the books extremely well.

New Socks for the Mister

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Deborah Cooke

The mister’s new socks were done in time for him to put his best foot forward for the new year!

The pattern is an old one, from a Beehive book called Socks by Beehive #113. They must have printed a lot of copies of this booklet as they’re pretty easy to find in thrift stores and antique markets. This pattern is Knotty Pines. (Those are both Ravelry links.)

I really like this pattern and have made it several times, long before Ravelry existed (so those socks aren’t listed on my project pages there.) The yarn is vintage Patons Kroy in a heathery blue.

Patons Knotty Pines socks, knit in Patons Kroy by Deborah Cooke

The legs are shorter than stipulated in the pattern because I was going to make these for myself. They ended up being too wide in the foot for me (I should have seen that coming, with 76 stitches around) so they became socks for the mister instead. He really likes them.

Now that I have my needles back, I could cast on a pair for myself. First, though, I’m going to finish those pretty socks.

I hope you all have a happy new year – with lots of cozy socks! – and wish you and yours all the best for 2026.

The Orange Purse Completed

Posted on December 23, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

I mentioned these two fruity purses to you a few weeks ago, as they’d risen to the surface of my projects needing to be finished. They were from a kit from Knitpicks called The Elegant Edibles kit. (That’s a Ravelry link – the pattern is no longer available.)

I knit the orange and the kiwi, but never finished them and put them aside. That’s changing now. 🙂

The orange was like this:

Orange purse from Elegant Edibles Knitpicks kit, knit by Deborah Cooke

Usually, when I put a project aside, there’s a reason. I had no idea how to line the orange, given its unusual shape, plus I thought it was too floppy to make a good purse. Similarly, I liked the handle of felted leaves, but it felt too soft to be functional.

One review, I decided to interface the lining. For the shape of the lining pieces, I flattened the bag and traced around the crescent shape, then around the arc of the “rind”. I added 1/4″ seam allowance on the edges and cut the lining. I then added some interfacing to the “rind” edge to give the purse some body. I trimmed a piece of curtain header (buckram) to the shape and stitched it to the lining fabric so it wouldn’t shift around, then assembled the lining.

You can still see those stitches. There was no chance of matching a print with so many colours, so I went with white for contrast.

Orange purse from Elegant Edibles Knitpicks kit, knit by Deborah Cooke - lining and reinforcement of base

Here’s how the lining looks with the purse on its side.

Orange purse from Elegant Edibles Knitpicks kit, knit by Deborah Cooke - lining completed

Of course, I added an interior pocket. Just for fun, I used a contrast batik. The open edge of the pocket is parallel to the zipper.

And here’s the bag turned right side out:

Orange purse from Elegant Edibles Knitpicks kit, knit by Deborah Cooke - bag with zipper

Finally, here it is all finished up.

Orange purse from Elegant Edibles Knitpicks kit, knit by Deborah Cooke - completed purse

I like the felted leaves a lot, but they’re a bit soft for a handle. Twining them around the fabric handle makes for a more sturdy solution. I’ll see how it works out but might stitch that felted wool handle right onto the batik. Overall, I’m pleased with the result. 🙂

Next up, the kiwi purse.

Vintage Knitting Patterns for Dolls from Mary Maxim

Posted on December 22, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

Last week, I discovered these older knitting patterns for 11.5″ fashion dolls available as PDFs from Mary Maxim. They were also on sale at the time, so I snapped them up. They include quite a number of garments each.

The first one is called Fashion Doll Wardrobe – you can find it on the Mary Maxim site right here.

It includes a (blue/white) houndstooth coat with pants, top and hat; a (green) poncho and dress; and a (peache/blue) capri set with top and short pants.

Apparently, the top and capris both have a beaded fringe at the hem, although it’s tough to see in the picture. The whole thing looks like an old photocopy. 🙂

The second one is also called Fashion Doll Wardrobe – the pattern samples are all knit in red and white.

It includes a “skating outfit” with sweater, skirt and headband; an “aran outfit” with sweater and skirt; a “casual outfit” with sweater and pants (I think that’s the top middle one); an “office outfit” of dress and short jacket; and an “evening outfit” of a long skirt and sleeveless top.

Again, the PDF pattern looks like a photocopy, but there’s a chart for the top sweater. It has a contrast star on the back.

The third pattern has a black and white product image, which is very fuzzy. This one is called Teen Doll Pattern.

From left, the pattern includes a coat and boots, worn with a straight skirt; a skating dress with panties; a long dress with an eyelet pattern on the skirt; a jacket, pants and tank top; and finally, a crocheted long dress.

Finally, there’s a very vintage pattern, Teen Age Doll Pattern Book. The description says it includes 8 outfits. Ravelry lists the original publication date of this book as 1950 but that can’t be right. The doll on the right is Midge, who was introduced in 1963.

There is the 3-piece suit for B shown on the cover, and the 3-piece outfit for K shown on the cover. There are two dresses for B: one “off-shoulder” and one v-neck. Both have a hat and purse. There’s a v-neck sweater and hat for both B and K – these look like polo shirts to me. There’s a Bermuda shorts set for both B and K, including shorts, sweater, knee socks and hat. There’s a sweater, skirt and hat for B with Rudolph on the sweater front. (That’s what it says. I don’t see it, but maybe it will be more clear in real life.) There’s a coat, hat and purse for B with fur trim which is very pretty. Then there are “ski outfits” for both B and K, with sweater, pants, mittens, socks and hat – knit in a variegated yarn, they look a bit like pjs. 🙂 I count more than 8 outfits in total, so there’s a lot of knitting in this little book.

All of the knits call for either fingering weight yarn on 2.75mm needles, or DK/sport yarn on 3mm needles. Sounds big to me, but I’ll check it out.

Ravelry shows a book (Mary Maxim, Teen Age Dolls, Vol 2: Mary Maxim Exclusive Knitted Sportswear for 9″ to 11½” Teen Age Dolls, Vol 2) which has classic Mary Maxim sweaters for Barbie, Ken and Skipper. Those would be fun to knit.

I found a print copy of this one on Etsy and have ordered it. I figured I’d print it out since the sweaters are charted, so a print copy made sense. I’ll tell you more about that one once I dig in.

Witch Hare Kit

Posted on November 18, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

A bit ago, I treated myself to a knitting kit and it arrived yesterday. It’s from Virtual Yarns and is the Witch Hare kit, for mittens and a hat. You can see it on their website, right here. Virtual Yarns is Alice Starmore and Jade Starmore’s company, featuring many patterns, books and yarns designed by Alice and Jade. There’s some wonderful eye candy on their website, so treat yourself to a few minutes of browsing.

Here are the pattern cards in the kit. They really are lovely, full colour on sturdy stock. (Apologies for the flash!)

I like this design, especially the mittens, and I was curious about the Virtual Yarns tweeds. A kit seemed a good way to check them out.

Here are the yarns in the kit. They look scrumptious.

And here are the patterns on Ravelry, in case you want to check out some other projects. They’re listed separately – first the mittens, then the hat.

The plan is to make the set once as the kit instructs, then possibly make the mittens again with another yarn (what yarn?) held double with KSH. The ones by the kit might get a KSH lining. We’ll see. Lovely yarn, though. I can’t wait to see how it knits up.

Chullo Hats

Posted on November 13, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

Here’s another UFO found in that stash – an unfinished chullo hat.

chullo hat knit by Deborah Cooke in Knitpicks Palette

This hat is knit of Knitpicks Palette and was a kit. Here’s the Rav page for the Andean Chullo Hat pattern, which is still available. Here it is at Knitpicks. The kit, which isn’t available any longer, came with several balls of Palette – I’m thinking maybe 8 colours. Palette is a fingering weight wool, which comes in a lot of colours.

I remember the pattern being a bit of fun, as there were numerous motifs that you could place on any of the sections and knit in any combination of the colours to make your hat your own. Have a peek at the projects on Rav to see the many variations. Of course, I had to march the llamas around the hat, though they might have shown up better if I’d knit them in the white in the kit. It’s also possible I mucked up the decreases at the crown because the circumference does diminish very quickly. (?)

This hat stalled without the tassels, partly because of the chullo hat shown below. I didn’t knit this one – I bought it at the Mountain Equipment Co-op a billion years ago (give or take). (In the 90s there were a lot of South American knits available for sale.)

South American chullo hat from the Mountain Equipment Coop

It’s knit of a yarn that seems a lot like Lopi Alafoss – but its special magic is that it’s lined with polar fleece. The mister grabs this hat whenever it’s really cold.

inside of South American chullo hat bought at the Mountain Equipment Coop

I meant to do the same with my chullo hat, but was stymied as to what shape to cut the pieces for the crown. Now I realize that the creator of this hat avoided that challenge by only lining the main part of the hat and the flaps. I’ll do that with mine.

We also have a couple of chullo hats from one of the mister’s trips to South America. He hiked the Inca Trail back in the day (to end up at Machu Picchu at dawn) and it was so cold that he bought two hats from the local knitters. Both are chullos. He wore this navy one.

He bought this second hat just because, and I’m glad he did. It’s so beautiful.

The wool is so fine, it’s almost thread. Look at the detail.

Someone had a very fine set of needles! I love that the colour placement is apparently random. It’s such a lovely piece of work – and very inspiring.

And here, finally, is my own lined and finished chullo.

Another Bag Finished

Posted on November 11, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

I found this bag partly completed in a stash of WIPs. The pattern is Sipalu and I knit it in Patons SWS. (That’s Soy Wool Stripes in the red mix and Soy Wool Solids in the solid red. I used another yarn with the same content for the solid black, Gjestal Garn Bris. I suspect that yarn is discounted. The SWS is.)

Sipalu Bag by Kerin Dimeler-Laurence knit in Patons SWS by Deborah Cooke

My Ravelry project page says I knit it in 2011 and finished it in 2013 – but that, alas, is not entirely true. It was completed this far – as above – but the lining pieces were only cut out and unassembled. They were stashed away with it.

Here’s my original blog post about it.

I added piping to the interior of the red bands and you can see them in the picture above. That one is a before-felting picture – the one below is after felting. That button is a porcelain one from a local maker and I just love it.

So, the lining. I suspect I put this aside because the construction of the zippered edge was a little complicated. I had assembled the lining for the body and put a pocket on it already.

Base of Sipalu bag knit by Deborah Cooke in Patons SWS

I’d also secured a plastic base in the bottom with some purse feet. Ikea makes these thin ones that come in packs of two, and you can cut them to size with a utility knife. The colours change with each new batch, but I always have a few in my materials stash.

Now that tricky bit. The bag is essentially a box and is maybe 3″ deep, so I needed to centre the zipper between two pieces across the top, between the handle ends. Once I got out my ruler and made a plan for that, the lining came together quickly. There was a good bit of handsewing, to line the handle and secure the bag lining, but it wasn’t that big of a job.

Lining of Sipalu bag knit by Deborah Cooke in Patons SWS

Why is it that these incomplete projects that sit waiting for years always take a very short period of time to finish up? It happens every time.

And here’s the finished bag. It looks a bit dark in this pic, thanks to a dingy day – but it’s DONE!

Completed Sipalu bag knit by Deborah Cooke in Patons SWS

Unfinished Purses & A Beet

Posted on November 7, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

There are more projects in this stash of UFOs. Here’s the next one in my finishing queue.

This was a kit from Knitpicks with instructions and wool for six fruity purses, called The Elegant Edibles kit. (That’s a Ravelry link – the pattern is no longer available.) I remember thinking these were so cute.

Here are the official pictures from Knitpicks:

I did not remember that it was 2008! I finished the kiwi and the orange purses by 2010, and they’ve been waiting patiently ever since to be finished up. Enough!

Here’s how I found them:

Kiwi purse from Elegant Edibles Knitpicks kit, knit by Deborah Cooke

These are really cute knits and I like that there are beads for the ‘seeds’. I made some changes to the pattern, noted on my Ravelry project page here.

I suspect what happened was that I didn’t like how floppy they were and wasn’t sure what to do about it. In the KP pix, they look more like pillows than purses to me. I did felt them a bit, which gave them a little more substance. I also decided against the handles shown in the pattern and adapted the leaves from the bunch of grapes for the orange. Those leaves are felted as well.

And now to finish them up. I found some coordinating zippers (there were zippers in the kit, but who knows where those ones are now) and pinned them in. I also cut linings and interfacing for those linings – in fact, I’ve cut buckram for the outer curve on each one. The kiwi one doesn’t have a handle at all, but my Rav stash lists the bin (in the attic) where the remaining yarn is supposed to be. (It was there at some point. Is it still there? I’ll have to go up and see.) I’m thinking a long i-cord in the green would be a good choice for a handle on the kiwi bag. If the yarn is gone, I’ll do one in black.

The beet and the grapes are also cute, but I have no idea what I did with the pattern. Hmm. If I find the yarn, I’ll hunt down the pattern. I do remember that the brighter purple (for the beet) was called Fairy Tale. 🙂

Did I use up the KP yarn on this Norah Gaughran beet? Here’s my Rav project page, and yes, the purple is the KP yarn. The green is Patons Classic Wool Worsted, so the green from the kiwi purse might still be in the stash. I’ll have to go hunting…

Beet by Norah Gaughan knitted by Deborah Cooke

Knitting Dragons

Posted on November 4, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

You might remember these two little dragons I knitted. The one on the left (Cedric) sits on the bookshelf in my office and the one on the right has gone on to live on a different bookshelf. I started to knit a few more.

The pattern is Tarragon, a free download. (That’s the Ravelry link.) There are a lot of projects on Ravelry with additions and changes to the pattern – I’ve added ears as in one of those projects. I knit mine with a strand of fingering weight or sock yarn – in this case, it’s Koigu KPPPM – held double with a strande of KSH or similar. This time, it’s Elann Silken Kydd.

Here’s the new dragon on the block:

green dragon knit by Deborah Cooke from Tarragon pattern

This time, instead of knitting four wings and sewing them together in pairs, I knit the green wings, then picked up the stitches for the yellow “lining”. The wings are knit from the outer edge in, and this saved some sewing. I think outer edge looks neater too.

I think he’s cute!

Those Pretty Socks

Posted on October 30, 2025 by Deborah Cooke

You might remember that I cast on these socks in May, from the book Knitted Socks from Finland.

Here’s my original blog post about them.

And here’s the first picture I shared then.

Dear Sister socks in progress, knit in Knitpicks Chroma Fingering by Deborah Cooke

Soon after posting it, I saw the mistake. Do you see it? Look at the left wing of that completed butterfly. You can see a row of black stitches, making the five dots into two dots and a weird V. It’s maybe 15 rows back.

I failed the trick of inverting the chart – what’s black on the chart is being knit in the pinks and what’s white on the chart is being knit in black. That always bends my brain a bit.

I’ve been looking at it ever since, pondering what to do, and finally decided to pick it back and fix it. I don’t know why I ever linger over this choice. Once I’ve seen an error, I can’t un-see it and I always have to fix it. Maybe it just takes me some time to accept the sad truth. I had knitted further than shown in that picture, so there was even more to frog.

So, here’s the same sock with the error fixed. I knit to the end of my kinked up yarn, so this is how far I was. The light is a bit harsh, but that butterfly’s wing dots are now right.

Dear Sister socks in progress, knit in Knitpicks Chroma Fingering by Deborah Cooke - corrected

I tried on the sock because it seemed short. It won’t be a knee sock for me – it looks like the sock will end at the widest part of my calf. That means they’ll definitely be lounging socks, because they’ll slide down when I’m walking.

Onward!

Alive & Knitting

Knitting and other tangled webs we weave

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