Ivy's Sweater

"I once had a sweet little doll, dears,/ The prettiest doll in the world."

--Charles Kingsley

Ok, folks.  It's been a while since I've posted, and I have about twenty gloriously out-of-order things I'd like to blog about, but this is what we have for now, because it's 23 minutes until I leave for my first American Lit class (scary) and there's not time for anything else.  

This is Ivy.  Ivy is from 1974; she is Julie's best friend.  Besides being comparatively new, she is an excellent model because she has short hair that doesn't need to be put up and no floppy limbs.  And the sweater you see Ivy modeling was what I did this past Saturday, since my brothers slept all day and I was bored.  

It is a very pretty, soft sweater in real life. (The pictures make me see imperfections I never noticed that much before, but that's ok.)  I don't know where the yarn came from; I found it, unlabeled, in my bag and knitted it into a nice little rectangle with buttonholes over the past few weeks at school.  But the thing about knitting at school is that there is absolutely no guarantee the thing will fit the doll.  Mama measured one of the AG dolls' waists for me (Nicole; and it's 11 inches, if anyone was curious), but shoulders are 

tricky.  So I saved it for Fake Break last week.  

I have never successfully knitted truly wearable anything, but this really turned out well.  Instead of stitching all the pieces together, I used a crochet hook to pick up stitches through the existing fabric and put it straight onto the needles from there.  It's the first time I've

 knitted sleeves, and they worked out really well in the round.  It's also the first time I've switched needle gauges, which I did for the sleeves, neck, and edging to make everything tighten up a bit, and it's the first time I've played with buttonholes in knitting at all.  They were a bit big at first, but with some wrapping and some strategic stitching, it worked out.  They're more diagonal in the picture than they are in real life, when I can pull it straight.  Anyway, I just had to show off my handiwork because I'm very proud of it.  

Oh, and by the way, I brought Ivy back to school with me, 

where she'll stay at least until Spring 

Break.  I want to knit/crochet some sundresses from this 

pretty blue yarn Mama and I found, and I need a model.  Plus, having an American Girl around makes me feel better about life in general.  

It does not make my roommate feel better about life in general.  But she'll get used to it.