Jemima

As promised, some knitting content! I’m still in the mood for small projects, and I’ve managed to finish quite a few too! Here, let me introduce you to someone.

Hello! My name is Jemima. Australian readers might know me from such children shows as Playschool. I have my own page here.

My knitter had been kind enough to make me my own little wardrobe. Here I am wearing my favourite overalls and t-shirt.

Sometimes I like to get dressy.

And sometimes when it’s cold I like to wear my scarf. Look! It has fringes and it’s fastened with a vintage button.

My little owner is also quite taken with me.

And the gory details…

Measurement: Jemima is 29cm (11.4 inches) tall, from head to toe.
Pattern: Based on Jemima Doll pattern from the ABC Kids Book of Knitted Toys (bought from a thrift shop), with heavy modifications by me (see below).
Yarn: For main body, t-shirt, shoes, and scarf, I used Sullivan’s Baby Touch 4-ply (70% synthetic polymer / 30% acrylic) in cream (body), pink (t-shirt and shoes), and orange (scarf), 1 ball each. For overalls, I used some denim-coloured acrylic yarn (I don’t remember the brand, but it was bought at Big W when I was just learning to knit — it’s a bit scratchy but Jemima doesn’t mind). For the dress, I used a ball of Lincraft’s Cutie Pie yarn (70% synthetic polymer / 30% acrylic) in light purple. This yarn is very, very soft, I could hardly believe it. But the information on the ball band is next to useless — gauge is waaay off, and no yardage mentioned. For her hair, I used some scrap black woolen yarn. This project had been great for using those odd balls that were lying around!
Needles: 3.25mm / US3 DPNs.

Modifications:

• The original pattern’s instruction was to knit the body in flat pieces. So, the head, body, and legs have front and back pieces which were then to be seamed up, leaving a hole for stuffing, stuff the thing, then seam up the hole. I felt that this is just too much seaming for me, and unnecessarily too, when it can be knitted in the round quite easily. So I basically just took the measurements (number of stitches for legs, body, etc) from the pattern, but converted the pattern into knitting in the round with DPNs from the toes up. This way I could stuff the body as I go.
• Overalls were knitted in flat pieces as per pattern.
• The book also includes a pattern for Jemima’s dress, but in flat pieces also. I converted this to knitting in the round from the top down, similar to the Picovoli dress that I made for Annette, except that there’s an opening at the back for easy wearing by Jemima.
• Garter stitch scarf is my own addition. It has a button hole and a vintage button for fastening.
• The dress bottom edging is also my own addition. I tried to make it like an edging that I saw in one of Jean Greenhowe dolls (Annette received one from our neighbour last Christmas). I really like this edging. Basically I did it just like this:

  Row 1 (WS): Knit all stitches.
  Row 2 (RS): Knit all stitches.
  Row 3: P1, then (yo, p2tog) across row.
  Row 4: Knit all stitches.
  Row 5: Knit all stitches.

  

Very happy with this project! The great thing is that if I want to, I can keep on making more additions into Jemima’s wardrobe. 🙂