Pattern by DollsBerries, tweaked a little.
So sweet! And all the little pieces! So much talent!
Thank you!
Great job. The strap on the shoe is a nice touch.
Thank you! Each item of clothing can be removed individually except her knickers and socks. The shoes are a bit fiddly though!
Oh, that’s even more impressive than I originally thought. Do you plan on making similar dolls?
I’ve made tonnes of stuffed toys for younger children - bears, bunnies, unicorns, elephants etc. I’ve started and almost completed a bunch of dolls like this but I almost never finished them off because I don’t have anyone to give them too and the finishing off bit is the hardest! Off the top of my head I’ve (almost) made a Frida Kahlo, a mermaid, a storm trooper, en Elsa, an Anna, and an Olaf. I made my godson a poop emoji keyring and a bunch of Pokémon and this very cute deer for my mum a few years ago:
Awww, that’s adorable!
but I almost never finished them off because I don’t have anyone to give them to
I’m in the same boat as you, but I’ve been thinking about seeing whether hospitals would be willing to take them for the kids, in addition to the standard “giving them to goodwill, leaving them around,” etc. It’s not nearly as fun as gifting them, but at least they have somewhere to go
I joined a group that sort of does that; octopus for a premie (it exists in the US and UK) donate small octopus like toys to premature baby units. It helps give the babies something to grab onto so they don’t pull on their critical tubes and wires. A study also found it reduced anxiety in the little ones.
I made about 100 (that were accepted) before the pandemic hit and we had to stop. It’s up and running again now but the charity (at least in the UK) is pretty problematic so I don’t make for them anymore. I couldn’t afford to since the cost of living crisis hit anyway tbh.
There’s a list of specific yarns and stuffing you must use, you must follow the patterns exactly, and there’s a pretty high fail rate. It wouldn’t describe it as particularly fun or creative - more frustrating and expensive! But if you just like crocheting and don’t have anyone left to offload your finished pieces onto, it’s a very rewarding hobby 😊
Just google OFAP. I believe they operate solely through Facebook though. I’ll attach some photos of my favourites!
I’ll look into that, thank you! Hopefully the US program won’t be as bad, and there must be others. But there’s always someone champing at the bit to take advantage.
Those look super cute and, for how simple they are, I wonder why the fail rate is so high?
So for me I nearly always failed for having “gaps” in the octopus heads. But it could be anything - not being exactly the right width and height, not being stuffed firmly enough, tentacles being too long or too short, using too many hdc on the tentacles, using a yarn they had previously approved but then changed their minds…
I understand how careful we have to be as these are going to tiny extremely vulnerable babies, but some rules just seemed ridiculous. Here’s some of mine that failed inspection, all due to gaps. You can be completely honest, do you think these gaps could be a danger to any baby?
