About a week ago, I took a course in Ann Arbor at Knit A Round (a totally absolutely faboulous yarn shop that everyone should visit) taught by Kathryn Carras on making knitted dolls. Her card (below) gives you a sample of one of the dolls she's made:

Her dolls are all based on a very simple tube-based pattern. All you need to know is a little increasing and a little decreasing and you can do one of these. She brough a number of examples, almost all of which were a lot more elaborate than mine. I used this opportunity to play with eyelash yarn and Mission Falls 1824 cotton.

The yarn she is made out of (from left to right) is Dalegarn Svale (50% cotton, 40% viscose, 10% silk), Crystal Palace Fizz in color 7117, a beautiful hand dyed blue faced Leceister roving, Mission Falls 1824 Cotton and Manos Del Uruguay in WildFlowers (100% wool).

Here's a better look at her hair, which was attached with a very nasty looking felting needle. Attaching it makes you feel a little bit like a voodoo practitioner sticking pins into a voodoo doll. This lovely roving has bits of olive green nestled amongst the rich auburn and goes nicely with the Fizz.

She's a bit of a short, squat girl with a thick neck and less than ordinary features. But fun to make. She could use a lot more embellishments: a crocheted skirt border, perhaps, maybe more detail to her braid (some of my classmates came up with very clever braids), a collar to cover her less than perfect neck. In a future iteration, I think I would choose to use more elastic yarn.

Probably the best part of this class was Kathryn -- I got to hear about the trials and joys of sheep ownership, spinning, dying and knitting design (all of which she does). Almost all her dolls are made out of her own hand spun, hand-dyed yarn (with the exception of the one on the card which, I think, is Mexiko). What I enjoyed the most about her was that she encouraged people to go beyond the pattern and enjoy the creative process. She very much saw the pattern as just a starting place. I would highly recommend this class, but it does pay to be a fast knitter.

If you would like to meet Kathryn in person, she will be at the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan Michigan. This festival will be running from August 13th to 17th and I'm hoping to convince Julie that she needs to make a road trip with me...