Closer.

She successfully navigated the customs office yesterday. Box opening later today?

She’s still in customs.

(Note the absence of an exclamation point in today’s title.) I figure that they are still digging out from the storms of the last two weeks, even though in Chicago they are probably pretty used to that.

I got all the stitches on the new prototype sweater transferred from DP’s to a short, pointier circular needle yesterday. No actual knitting done, as I am working on a project in human scale.

Maybe tomorrow I will have a new doll in hand; I am hoping that she will arrive before the weekend.

She’s in customs!

I’d better get busy at my sewing machine!

On shipping.

I checked my order status at Iplehouse this morning. I have a tracking number for my Naias. She may be here as early as tomorrow, depending upon how long she spends at customs.

No idea when I can get her to Nekokoi for her face-up, as this is looking like a particularly busy week. But pictures soon, I promise!

Out of dolly debt.

(Originally published this morning on my spinning blog. Oye.)

My Iplehouse Naias is paid off. I am just getting the basic doll, a wig, and a black turtleneck T-shirt. The fairy/naiad bits are cute, but they don’t suit the character I have in mind for her.



I also paid off this outfit I bought from Fourthborn. Pictures of the petticoat, crinoline and shoes are on my primary blog today. The blouse:



The crinoline, which I wanted as a pattern for future ones of my own design:



And the petticoat, pretty in its own right (although the commercial lace does not thrill me excessively), and also useful as a pattern.



I’ll try to remember to photograph the vest and the overskirt in the near future.

I bought more yarn for doll hats last night on my way home from work. Progress is slow but I think steady toward opening my Etsy shop.

Neglected blog.

There has been way too much going on in non-doll life. I did finish the sweater for Chutzpah.



It has buttonholes on each side of the button band and laces up with silk ribbon from my stash.

I bought a DOC Bee-A from Nekokoi, who sent all sorts of clothing and shoes home with her. That’s Honor, in the red.



I have one payment remaining on an Iplehouse Naias, who will either be Hope or Charity when she arrives sometime after my birthday in mid-April. I am also severely tempted by both Erzulie (love that ladybug on her dress!) and Efreet, although I would like Efreet better if she were not so pouty.

And I am opening up an Etsy shop (soon). This is some of the yarn I ordered last week, when I was snowed/iced in.



Right now I have a dozen hats in three sizes, all knitted up from Noro Kureyon Sock in four colorways. And I need to reconstruct the pattern for Chutzpah’s sweater, because I’m not finding it in any of the usual places in Word. One of my friends in the doll world has suggested that I offer some items in non-wool fibers, hence the silk tweed (beige) and bamboo (lime green) you see above. The fuchsia is laceweight cashmere, because I couldn’t resist.

And now if you will all excuse me, I’m off to do some serious swatching.

I am done with the lower half of sleeve #1 for Chutzpah. I knitted the sweater body in one piece from the hem up to the underarm. All of those stitches are threaded onto lifelines (in this case, a doubled strand of Gütermann silk sewing thread): one for each front, one for each underarm, and one for the back.



Now I am knitting both sleeves to the same point and will join them on, then knit raglan decreases up to the neck. Once I get both sleeves added, but before I complete the decreases, I will have to decide: is this a cardigan, opening in the front like the first two doll sweaters I have made and using beads for buttons? Or is it a mock pullover, opening in the back and using snaps or Velcro or ribbon threaded through eyelets to close?



In the meantime, it has been fun to work on a sleeve that, when I reached the underarm, was about about the width of a quarter. I am working the sleeve over 24 stitches, slipping the first stitch (without knitting it) at the beginning of each row to make a nice, neat edge. And the sleeve is one-third the width of the body. So each three-row pattern repeat takes as long as one row on the body. Which didn’t take long at all.

I still wish these needles were pointier on the end. I think that if I were knitting on needles the size that normal people use (i.e. size 5 or larger for a human-sized sweater), these would be sufficiently pointy. But at this gauge I am getting split stitches here and there because the end of the needle just noses at the yarn instead of sliding under it.

There are two itty-bitty lifelines, three stitches wide, at the edge of each sleeve.

Time to cast on for sleeve #2.