New Babies and some Knitting!

These two, sweet, baby dolls joined my doll collection over the past couple of months.

 

On the left is an Armand Marseille 341, also commonly known as "Dream Baby".  She has blue sleep eyes, celluloid hands, and a cloth body.  She is approximately 12" long, and wears an antique dress.  Her little friend is an 8" Bye-lo Baby, just like the one I dressed for a fellow doll club member and posted about!  I wanted one so badly after holding my friend's doll, and I just happened to find one on Ebay shortly thereafter.  She has brown, stationary eyes, celluloid hands, cloth body, and her original gown and socks.  It's always exiting to find an old doll that still retains it's original clothing.  These dolls were made as playthings, and little girls back then liked to undress their dollies as much as little girls do today.  So quite frequently, I suppose, the outfits were lost.

 

While this one's dress is not original, it is still from the same era and definitely appropriate.

 

Sweet little Bye-lo was just begging for a sweater set, so I hauled out my knitting needles, found a pattern, and made a trip to JoAnn's for yarn.  I wish we had a local yarn store, but the few we've had over the years have all shut down due to the economy.  So sad.  However, JoAnn's came through with this fine, wool, sock yarn.  I really wanted 100% wool, but that wasn't to be found.  So I settled for this 80% wool/20% nylon blend and I think it turned out pretty nice.

 

I have never knitted anything so small before, but didn't it turn out sweet?  I used a pattern from a book by Marjory Fainges called "Classic Knits for Baby Dolls".   Both the sweater and the bonnet tie shut with silk ribbons.

 

The sweater was knit in five, separate pieces and then joined together at the seams. I'm not sure I did a very professional job with the seaming, but I think it turned out okay.

 

The sleeve cuffs are quite snug, and I almost couldn't fit them over her hands. Almost. 

 

Dream baby is next on my list for her own little sweater and bonnet.  I have enough of the wool yarn left, so I'll probably use that.  The knitting book I used has patterns for many different sized dolls, so it shouldn't be hard to find one to fit her.