Whilst working on a knitting pattern for a doll’s dress that I am preparing to publish, I knitted up a sample of the smallest size dress in a beautiful Malabrigo sock yarn. It came out so well that I really wanted to use this dress for photographs, but I had no doll in the right size to model it. So a doll needed to be made. Inspiration for new doll projects can come from all sorts of places!

I began with the dress and put together a colour palette of fabrics, anything that I liked, without a particular aim in mind. I had found these gorgeous and bright Wensleydale locks by Spin City UK at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival, and this was their moment.

I then packed these materials up and took them on holiday with my family, unsure whether I would have time to work on this doll or not. But time was found in snatches between walks and climbing and meals together.

I needle-felted a head first, and it was too large for the dress, so I made another. When working on a small scale, 1cm of size difference can have a big impact.

A needle-felted body and chocolate-coloured skin. I have decided that this is as small as I can make this type of ear, it’s just too fiddly for smaller than 5 mm. But what a face, this doll already had oodles of character.

And what fun it was to make the hair!

The dress fitted, thankfully. Just a little tidying of this fantastic hair…

…and she’s finished. My son said she was a bright as a jewel, so that became her name.