Knitted Dolls (Jean Greenhowe)

This project has been a long time in its gestation. I have had Jean Greenhow's book 'Knitted Toys' for many years, and wanted to try something a tad more ambitious than the smaller toys I had previously knitted. At the suggestion of some small friends, I decided to try her knitted dolls.  I don't think I had realised quite how big they would be, despite the instructions stating that they are each 47cm.

These dolls are different from most of the knitted toys in this (or other) books, as they have removable clothes. I didn't know who I was making them for at first. I wasn't sure I would even finish them; I was more interested in making the clothes than the dolls, as they seemed more interesting.

It's over two years since I started with this, the 'boy' doll.  I never like knitting dolls with pink faces and hands; the pinks available never seem like flesh colours. So I prefer to use light browns, to give a suggestion of Asia or South America, or perhaps just a slight tan.

I had an idea of making him for my grandson, who was three at the time.  But as the project proved so much more complicated than I expected that it got put off, and put off...

I finally finished him yesterday.

Around the same time, I also started a 'girl' doll, in a slightly different shade of brown. Perhaps I should have completely finished the 'boy' doll by this stage, but I had a granddaughter too, and decided they should have one each, at the same time.

But she was only six months old, so I knew it would have to wait at least a year.  And then when my grandson's fourth birthday rolled around, they were travelling, and I decided to leave it another year.

He is now five, and she is two-and-a-half.  She's old enough for dolls who can be dressed and undressed, and he is still young enough to appreciate this kind of thing.

Since each doll can wear the clothes of the other, they can switch around if they want to. And if there's any enthusiasm, I can even knit more clothes to be added to the few I have already done.

My favourite part of the project was the easiest: the hats, scarves and mittens.  So here is the boy dolls, dressed up (and sitting up) wearing his winter woollies.

Under the yellow jacket, he's wearing dungarees that slip on.  The jacket was supposed to have buttons and button holes, but I didn't want to use anything so complicated.  So I just used a popper (snap fastener) at the top. 

The hat is in three coloured stripes, and the scarf a very simple one.  The original had tassels, and the jackets had pictures on the back, but I wanted to keep it all as straightforward as I could.


The girl doll has a grey jacket, which goes with all her other pink and purple clothes.  Her hat is in two coloured stripes and the scarf, again, is a very simple one. Just long enough to go around her neck.

I put her in her purple dress for this, rather than the pink jumpsuit (or pyjamas, perhaps?) which she's wearing in the other picture.  This shows more of how the doll is knitted, with cream coloured socks (blue for the boy) and black shoes all knitted as part of the actual doll. 

They both have a kind of onesie undergarment too, which then doubles as an undershirt when they are wearing something like dungarees, or indeed the dress. 

Here, to show how it works, is the girl doll in just the purple dress.  Underneath is the creamy undergarment, which has little cuffs and a collar to make it look like a shirt or blouse under the dress.

The original dress in the book had contrasting knitted flowers around the skirt. But they seemed over-complicated to me (and rather fussy, too).  They also seemed like the kind of thing that could break off too easily. 

The dress was supposed to have buttons at the back, too, but, again, I used just a popper.  I had some trouble sewing the dress after knitting, as I hadn't quite grasped how it works. The instructions for putting the pieces together in this rather dated book are not as clear as those in more recent books and booklets.

This shows the pink jumpsuit which the girl doll is wearing in the first picture, and also the pinafore dress, with little straps which, again, show the creamy vest/shirt underneath. 

The pinafore dress easily slipped off and on, so I didn't bother with the buttons that were recommended to fasten the straps. And for the jumpsuit, I used a thin strip of velcro to fasten the front.  I couldn't find very thin velcro, so I cut a regular piece in half vertically, and sewed it just inside. It can just about be seen in the first photo.

These are the boy doll's other clothes.  A pair of trousers, which are elasticated around the waist, and a kind of jacket without sleeves.  I didn't particularly like this jacket; it was surprisingly tricky to sew together, and it was hard to get it to stay flat.

However, I think it goes quite well with the trousers.  I used velcro at the front of this sleeveless jacket, too. I quite like the idea of the clothes as low-key educational garments: some elasticated, some velcro, some with poppers. 

The hardest parts of making the dolls, for me, were the faces and hair.  The originals - shown at the side here - were supposed to have felt eyes glued in place, but I couldn't see those lasting very long in the hands of young children.  So I used Jean Greenhowe's popular method of making eyes with knots made out of double yarn, winding around three times.

I made eyebrows, too, which weren't in the originals, and those improved the appearance.  The hair instructions were very confusing and I ended up improvising somewhat, but I quite like the results and hope my grandchildren will be happy with them too.