American Girl

So, originally I thought that I'd weasel out of spending 4th of July weekend with my family, but send some festive token of my esteem.  And then the rest of my family weaseled out of spending 4th of July weekend with the family.  Which meant that I needed to get this damn thing done in time for mailing.

There are two ways to crochet in the round: the super cool awesome people's way, and joined rounds.  The joined round technique was invented by Satan at the request of Adolph Hitler [citation needed].  The Lily doll's 4th of July dress involves joined rounds.  And some other shennanigans, but I just did what I always do when I don't understand a pattern: steal the closest thing out of Amigurumi World/Amigurumi Two/Amigurumi Toy Box.  My doll's body is actually the Toys in Pajamas body from Amigurumi Two! (with some adjustments and changes to get it to match up with what I assume the Lily pattern was trying to do).

This is my first project with hair.  What with the deadline I didn't have time for some yarn company's jibber jabber about tape and tissue paper and sewing machines.  I would invite you to imagine an idiot, screaming in stupid agony as she sews her own hand to a tangled mass of yarn and tissue paper, but I don't want to give you the impression that I actually know how to thread a sewing machine.  So instead imagine an idiot using a two sentence online tutorial and a yarn needle.

I think this picture--which makes you all sex offenders, btw--is before I cut the doll's hair.

 The secret to joined rounds is apparently a tight deadline and hoping nobody looks at the back of this thing.

Apparently I don't work well under pressure because the first star got hot glued on with the wrong side up.

I like that these dolls have different outfits (even if I'm too stupid to really understand how to make them), but they're written so that the doll's shoes are sewn to her feet or actually are her feet.  I knew I wouldn't have time to make the nice sandals anyway, so these are the beginning of the nice sandals with a tail of yarn sewn to both sides.  If you look closely you can see that there are technically two "straps" on each shoe, but I think it's pretty well hidden.  And if staring at the shoes keeps anyone from looking at the back...

I was going to leave the doll's hair loose so I wouldn't have to worry about coverage on the back of the head, but then I decided I didn't want to have to put on the note, "Happy 4th of July, Grandma!  Please neatly rearrange your present's hair with your arthritic fingers!"

For the hair ties I used two pieces of variegated embroidery floss.  I tied it in the back in the hopes of avoiding some hideous, bizarre bald spot, then turned the bows towards the front.  Man oh man, I hope nobody looks at the back of this thing.

Did Lily get a mouth before her maker rushed to the post office?  No, no she did not, but she did get to the post office before 5, and Kate got a raging case of Nintendo thumb.