After working on Sindy and Patch dolls for a couple of days I decided that I would try to do something about Pedigree Baby.

One set of eyelashes are a bit of a mess, I need to find some tweezers and see if I can pull them back into position, Other wise she might need a new set. Her other issue is that she has a few scratches on her face.

I had read that toothpaste could be used to remove scratches. I didn’t think it would do any harm so I decided to have a go. I used small amounts of toothpaste on a cotton face washer and rubbed them into the scratches. Here she is after I’d worked on her for a while. The scratches are still visible but I think they are definitely fainter. Mrs Marsh was right. It does get in! I have cleaned up her eyes a bit but I would like to see if I can remove some of that messy residue around her eye as well.

I have just started knitting her a little dress to replace the too large romper she is wearing. It’s an old style pattern. I like my vintage babies in era appropriate clothing. Here’s the pattern.

I am not going to have enough wool to do the whole set but I should have enough for the dress and maybe the booties. I only had three balls of this wool so I decided to make the little dress a bit shorter than the pattern, the pink is just for contrast and I may use it on the sleeve edges as well. I will make her a little jacket in another colour later when I find something I think will go well with it.

I remember how mum used to like to knit garments in lacy stitch like this and how hard she tried to teach me to do it. She used to say that she found it easier to do this stitch than plain knitting. I don’t and I tend to prefer to knit in garter stitch, stocking stitch, rib and occasionally moss stitch although I’m happy to change colours. However I’m persevering with this pattern and as you can see it’s half done here. If mum was here now I’d have asked her to do this for me and she’d have probably already finished it. She did love to make toys and dolls clothes.

Later:

There wasn’t enough wool! I got the back and front made and had already decided to do the sleeve band in the contrasting colour but I ran out of the pale wool halfway through the second sleeve. That is so annoying. I should have made the garter stitch bands on the front and back pink as well, the other wool would have gone further. I didn’t want to introduce a third colour and I really didn’t want to undo the work I had done. Unpicking knitting is one of my top 5 hates, right up there with two step verification numbers and having to use a mobile phone. There was no way I was touching the back or front but I unraveled some of the completed sleeve so that I could add more pink to both. At this point I pretty much threw away the pattern and reimagined the look of the sleeves with different shaping. It still wasn’t enough. I ran out of wool about three rows from the end. In the end I just used some white wool for the last few rows. I figured that this would be part of the shoulder seam and should not show too much. Nevertheless I am not happy with it and will make another outfit for her later when I get more balls of wool that match. I might add that had I been knitting for a modern doll I’d have just used lots of bright coloured stripes but I like vintage dolls to wear vintage style outfits.

I sewed buttons on the back and tried it on her. It is a little large but not too much. Maybe I could have made the smaller size. Still it will have to do for now.