September Month Of Softies

This is my first entry for Month Of Softies.  The September theme was "Personal Challenge", and I just barely pulled this off by the end of the month!  I've made dolls before and even another similarly styled doll, but I was challenging myself to actually make these before the boys are grown and gone, and this was just the motivation that I needed.   

I made the one on the right first for R.  He chose the hair and eye colors.  The hair is boucle mohair from Magic Cabin.  The striped shirt came from one of his old ones that had a big tear in it.  The cargo pants are made from an old flannel curtain.  The sweater is made from some mustard colored wool yarn from the thrift store that I had overdyed with grape Kool Aid to make it brown.  I winged the pattern, basing it loosely on the Garter Stitch Cardigan pattern from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies, by Erika Knight.  The one on the left is for E.  He adamantly insisted that his doll have "Chur-ka-loise" colored hair and blue eyes.  What the heck.  Why not?  I found some yarn in my stash that I had dyed and handspun in a class I took about 10 years ago that fit the bill perfectly, except that it's not nearly as soft as the mohair yarn.  The striped shirt is from a thrifted t-shirt.  The cargo pants are made from an old pair of my pants.  He has demanded requested that the sweater for his doll will be yellow.  I'll probably tweak the "pattern" a bit for this one.

I had to prompt both of them to get a proper "Thank you" out of them, but maybe their reactions to first seeing them finished should have been thank you enough.  R asked, "Mom, can I sleep with my doll tonight?"  E said, "I'm going to give it a hug!" and ran across the room to where it was sitting propped up on the couch.