You might remember that a while back I purchased a small mandrake root doll from The Beast Peddler on Etsy, named it Anthos, and gave them an Instagram. Following the Beast Peddler's tumblr has made me realize how many people have roots of their own and make cute clothes for them. I have no skill for sewing, even after sewing 50 patches on to my jacket, and just thinking about cutting and making tiny sleeves for arms that are a quarter of an inch long is giving me a headache. But I can crochet!
Jennings Street Yarns here in Fort Worth had a flash sale so of course I stopped by and bought a single skein of lace weight yarn. It is Sublime Lace and is extra fine merino wool in Tan. I can't seem to find it on their website or on WEBS (an online yarn store), but it is light and super soft and I love the natural color. I was thinking then that it might be fun to try to make a tiny sweater for Anthos, complete with collar and trim.
The yarn itself recommends a 3.25 mm hook but when I started working with it I felt that hook was way too large. I switched to a tiny steel 1.3mm hook. Keeping the yarn tension with such a thin yarn and small hook was the biggest challenge.
I first started out with a full cabled sweater idea but after getting a few rows in I couldn't tell if the cables were actually visible and standing out or not, and it was taking for ever. So I frogged it.
The second attempt went a bit better. The first one I had been working in the round after making a chain and connecting it, that meant that I kept having to put it on and off him after each row since Anthos' arms are not really to the side of their body like normal doll sweaters would be. This second time I worked the body as a long rectangle with the seam being at the back. This way I could add the arm holes in one row and then keep working. I seamed the long rectangle with slip stitches and then turned and worked two rows of single crochet along the top side to make the collar. After that I added a bottom ribbing trim with a row of single crochet for definition, followed by a row of double crochet. This was a good foundation to make the ribbing which was done with two rows of back and front post double crochet, alternating every two stitches.
For a first finished sweater it is a bit plain, but I still like it a lot. This whole sweater took a minuscule amount of yarn so I can for sure make more, and get a bit more ambitious. Perhaps I will make another full cabled or one with more pronounced ribbing and a bigger collar. In any case this was a lot of fun and since the yarn is such a neutral color, I can even do small dye batches to get more colors.
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| Anthos is pleased as punch. |
Difficulty: Intermediate
Time to Complete: 5 hours
