Rainbow, purple, and glitter

 What do you give a girl who already has a magical rainbow bag for her birthday?  A doll that also enjoys purple and rainbows!

 This is the same pattern as the 4th of July doll I made for my grandmother a few years ago.  This one is a smaller hook and I actually remembered to put a mouth on!

The doll and the first dress are the Lily Fun in the Sun pattern.  I'm still...skeptical about the body pattern (it involves making some sort of tube), but it's easy to modify to crochet in the round.

To crochet the body in the round, ch 2, then sc 6 in the first chain.  Work increasing rounds until you reach 30 sc, then sc around until the body is two inches from the butt--then you can go back to the pattern as written.

Normally the dolls I make go commando (or have leotards). Since I was hoping to have enough time to make a second outfit (and worried that the Fun in the Sun dress might be too short), this doll has permanent sparkly underwear.  And permanent sparkly shoes.

Feedback from the boyfriend and the sister indicated that the transitional stage of the doll (assembled but no hair or clothes) was unsettling.

Since the doll is going to get multiple outfits, both of her dresses are strapless.  Based on the directions, I suspect that the clothes are designed to stay on once the straps are added. The doll also went to a six year old with two younger brothers, so extra things that get sewn on are just extra things that can get accidentally pulled off.

After finishing the Fun in the Sun Dress (purple and sparkly), I had enough time to make a rainbow dress.  The rainbow dress is the same pattern as the 4th of July dress but with more color changes and more stripes.  Just one rainbow sequence made the dress more of a tunic length and I figured the birthday girl would approve of more rainbows, so I added more stripes.

As always, the patterns recommend sewing yarn onto tape or something?  This requires arcane skills like "threading a sewing machine" and "remembering where a sewing machine is."  My technique is to backstitch the "hair" onto the scalp, then carefully trim the hair once it's all on.

 It might be the yarn (Lion Brand Bon Bons vs Red Heart) or the length, but the rainbow dress came out a bit lumpy.  I'm hoping that the fact that it's hot pink with a rainbow will make up for that.