Hello!
I knitted a whole jersey!! Don't get too excited - it was 1/12th scale. I decided that Bill (doll's house friend of Milly who is proprietress of my main doll's house) needed a friend to go fishing with when he was at his beach house. I had a spare doll in the drawer because years ago when the original Bill's head came off due to enthusiastic conversations with my eldest Gorgeous Grand-daughter I had to find a replacement. This spare, called Darren, turned out to be a real Essex boy so was not fit for my purpose at that time. However, I got him out of the drawer the other day and took a razor blade to his stupid Jedward-style quiff of hair. Honestly, cutting doll's hair - am I 62 or 6? - then I stuck the shaved off bits of hair evenly over his head so he now looks more short-back-and-sides. Then I reckoned he needed a chunky jersey to wear instead of the bum-freezer brown cotton jacket he had on. So - I turned to my stash of old cones of very fine wool left over from my mother's FairIsle knitting days. Armed with navy 3-ply wool and a pair of size 13 (old UK size, about 2.5 mm I think) knitting needles I cast on 23 stitches. I was going to follow an old pattern of mum's for an Action Man jersey (my son's Action Man had an assortment of mighty fine knitted garments back in the '70s!) but even with finer wool and smaller needles it was going to be too big, so I made it up as I went along. I did it in moss stitch as I reckoned that would give it a good chunky look, and when it got long enough to reach up to under the doll's armpits I started decreasing. Knit 2 together at each end of the row, but only on every other row, until there are 13 stitches left, then cast off 2 stiches, knit and purl (keeping to your moss stitch) the next 9, slip the last 2 over to your right-hand needle so you can cast them off on your way back along. These will be the shoulders. Knit and purl up the 9 stitches for as many rows as you want the neck to be and then cast off. Do the front the same way. For the sleeves I cast on 13 stitches and when they were long enough to reach from wrist to armpit I did the decreasing thing in exactly the same way as for the front and back, so the slope angles and lengths match - isn't geometry a wonderful thing? You go right down to 1 stitch at the top of the sleeve, cut the wool and fasten off. Then sew the bits together. I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with my invention. Now he doesn't look like a Darren any more, but my lovely husband reckoned he still looked like a cabin-boy, so his name is Bob. (pronounced with an exaggerated plosive on the last B for all you Blackadder fans out there)
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