Santa's Little helper

Day 26, this is my last post for this particular project and here are the final outfits for my niece's Christmas elves to wear on Christmas Day, which was your favourite?

As with most of these elf clothes, I found a dress pattern on-line and then re-worked it to get the pattern for the jumper. The dress is another of Suzymarie's variations of the Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' and I used her 'Seasonal Sweaters' patterns for the basic jumper design. The original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toys.

The original patterns were written for 4 ply but, as the elves I have been knitting for are a little larger than the Little Cotton Rabbits, I have made mine in baby soft double knit and alpaka double knit.

Suzymarie has called this design 'Santa's Helper Dress', the instructions are available on Ravelry. It includes instructions for converting Julie Williams cloak into a Christmas cloak to match the dress.

I made similar changes to Julie Williams sweater pattern to get my Santa jumper with the belt and buckle.

On the back view of the jumper you can just make out the little button fastening.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing all of these Christmas outfits as much as I have enjoyed sharing them with you.

Happy Christmas in July, enjoy what is left of it.


Dionne

Sitting on the Fence

Day twenty five of my personal 'Christmas in July' challenge to share with you the miniature outfits I have been knitting for my niece's Christmas elves.  With just one more day to go we are getting close to the end of my little challenge and I wanted to thank you for sticking with me, it's been a long haul.

I trawled Pinterest and Ravelry looking for Christmas and winter knitting patterns I could use for this challenge but by this point I had used all of the designs I could find, so I had to come up with a design of my own.  I cheated a little and borrowed elements and ideas from one or two f the other patterns.  I have called my design 'Sitting on the Fence'.

As you will know by now, the original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toys.  The original patterns were written for 4 ply but, as the elves I have been knitting for are a little larger than the Little Cotton Rabbits, I have made mine in baby soft double knit.

Up close my robin looks a little deformed.  The beak is embroidered on and I added a little black bead to  for the eye.

As with most of these designs, once I had made the dress, I re-worked the chart to get the pattern for the jumper.  The dress pattern is by Julie Williams from her 'Seasonal Dresses' and  I used her 'Seasonal Sweaters' patterns for the jumper.  

Dionne

Running Reindeer

I'm back again. it's day 24 of my personal 'Christmas in July' challenge, which is to share with you the dresses and jumpers I have knitted for my niece's little Christmas elves.

Today's outfits are based on one of  the patterns in the Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' pattern book. This design is called 'Running Reindeer'.

If you look closely you may just be able to make out the collars of tiny gold beads and a red jingle bell hanging around the neck of each of the reindeer. those tiny jingle bells actually ring!

I re-worked the dress chart and, using 'Seasonal Sweaters' patterns for the knitting pattern, I came up with the design for the jumper.

As regular visitors will know, the original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toy, but these are a little smaller than the Christmas elves I am making these clothes for, so I made these clothes in double knit instead of 4 ply.  The red yarn is alpaka double knit and the white is baby soft.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Love Ewe Snow Much

I picked my laptop up from the computer shop Monday evening and I was so excited to have it back but nothing is every easy, is it?  In order to get rid of the problem my laptop has been reset to factory setting and before I can start using it I need to install all of the programmes I use.  It is not going well, I was at it all day yesterday, three attempts to load ITunes and I am still getting error messages.  I am constantly hampered by Microsoft updates but I cannot find the Windows 10 upgrade.  I have not even started on the discs I need to load.

However, back to the mission, it is day 23 of my personal 'Christmas in July' challenge to share with you the clothes I have been knitting for my niece's Christmas elves.  Just three more days to go.

As with most of these elf clothes, I found a dress pattern on-line and then re-worked it to  get the pattern for the jumper.  The dress is another of Suzymarie's variations of the Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' and I used the 'Seasonal Sweaters' patterns. The original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toys.

The original patterns were written for 4 ply but as the elves I have been knitting for are a little larger than the Little Cotton Rabbits I have made mine in baby soft double knit and alpaka double knit.

Suzymarie has called this design 'I Love Ewe Snow Much'.  I think it is a very pretty design but I cannot help sniggering at the name of the design.

I used the dress pattern to come up with a chart for the jumper, however I decided to have just the two sheep on the jumper.

Dionne


PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Christmas Flowers

I have another of the matching dress and jumper to show you, I made these to fit my niece's Christmas elves to share.  This is day twenty two, which means that I have now shown to you 21 of the 25 outfits, thank you so much for taking this journey with me.

The dress is another of Suzymarie's variations of the Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' pattern and I used her 'Seasonal Sweaters' pattern to make the jumper.

As those of you  who have been following these posts will already know, the original patterns were designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toys.  These patterns were written for 4 ply but, as the elves I have been knitting for are a little larger than the Little Cotton Rabbits, I have made mine in baby soft double knit.

Suzymarie has called this design 'Red Christmas Dress', you can find the chart on Ravelry.  I think the design is highly stylised Christmas flowers, poinsettias and possibly Christmas roses.  I have added a small gold bead to the centre of the poinsettias.  

When I re-worked Suzymarie's dress design to come up with the design for the jumper pattern I decided not to include the flowers on the back of the jumper.

Dionne


PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Hopping Robins

I'm back again with day 21 of my personal 'Christmas in July' challenge to share with you the miniature outfits I have been knitting for my niece's Christmas elves.

I know I keep saying this, but I do so for the benefit of anyone who has not read any of my previous posts .... where have you been, you have missed so much!  The original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toys.  The original patterns were written for 4 ply but, as the elves I have been knitting for are a little larger than the Little Cotton Rabbits, I have made mine in baby soft double knit.

On this occasion Julie Williams had done all of the hard work for me by charting both the dress and the jumper designs.  The dress came from Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' patterns, it is called ' Hopping Robins' and  the jumper came from her 'Seasonal Sweaters' patterns, it is called 'Robin Redbreast'.  These two pattern books are full of helpful tips and detailed descriptions of all the tricky stitches, idea for people like me ie the not very experienced knitter.

Although you cannot see it here, the DK white yarn has a metallic thread running through it.  I attached a tiny black bead for the robin's eye.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Dec' the Halls

Day twenty of my personal 'Christmas in July' challenge to share with you the 25 miniature outfits I have been knitting for my niece's Christmas elves.

Today's matching pair come from one of  the patterns in the Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' pattern book. This design is called 'Little Waves', but I think it looks a lot like the paper chains we had when I was a girl.

I added some little coloured faux pearls to the design, these came from ebay.

I re-worked the dress chart and, using 'Seasonal Sweaters' patterns for the knitting pattern, I came up with the design for the jumper.

As regular visitors will know, the original patterns were designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toy but these are a little smaller than the Christmas elves I am making these clothes for, so I made these clothes in double knit instead of 4 ply.  The grey is alpaka double knit and the white is baby soft.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Snowflakes

Day nineteen of my personal Christmas in July challenge to share with you the matching dresses and jumpers I have been knitting for my niece' Christmas elves.

For all of my elf clothes in this challenge I have used Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' and 'Seasonal Sweaters' for the basic pattern for my designs. These patterns were designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toys but my niece's elves are slightly larger, so I made them in double knit rather than 4 ply.

I have mentioned in my earlier posts that Julie gives all of her designs a name and this dress pattern is called 'Falling Snowflakes' - which just happens to be the same name as the pattern from yesterdays post.  The patterns are very different, as far as I can see the only difference is that this version is from the seasonal dress patterns leaflet.

The yarn I have used here is alpaka double knit for the blue and baby soft double knit for the white.

This was one of the first patterns I tried to re-work to get a pattern for the jumper and I was not very confident about taking the design up into the decreasing (where the sleeves are shaped).  Instead I added silver snowflake charms to the top of the jumper.  With hindsight, I am not sure I like the silver charms, but it would be very easy to remove them and leave the top of the jumper plain.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Falling Snowflakes

Friday again and day eighteen, I think, of my personal Christmas in July challenge to share with you the matching dresses and jumpers I have been knitting for my niece's Christmas elves.  I am still without my laptop and really missing now, I hope it will not be away too much longer.

Our heatwave seems to have broken, we had an enormous thunderstorm during the night on Tuesday and more torrential rain on Wednesday.  It was still hot and muggy yesterday but it is very overcast this morning.  It may change later but isn't that typical, just in time for the weekend.  Never mind, I hope it does not spoil your plans for the weekend.

Back to today's dress and matching jumper.

For all of my elf clothes in this challenge I have used Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' and 'Seasonal Sweaters' for the basic pattern for my designs. Julie called this design 'Falling Snowflakes'.  These patterns were designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series but my niece's elves are slightly larger, so I made them in double knit rather than 4 ply.

The dress does not really gather in at the bottom, it just looks that way in these photographs because my manikin has a net skirt which cannot be removed and it has pushed out the upper parts of the dress - distorting the shape.

As before, after making the dress I re-worked the dress pattern to get the stitch chart for the jumper.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Holly Berries

I think this is day seventeen of my personal Christmas in July challenge to share with you the matching outfits I have been knitting for my niece's Christmas elves .......... to be honest I am starting to loose count of the days.

For all of my elf clothes in this challenge I have used Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' and 'Seasonal Sweaters' for the basic pattern for my designs. These patterns were designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series but my niece's elves are slightly larger, so I made them in double knit rather than 4 ply.

Julie gives all of her designs a name and this dress pattern is called 'Red berries', I think it looks an awful lot like holly.

Before I started this project I had limited experience of Fair Isle knitting but I am getting a little better every day now.  However, I found this pattern particularly difficult with all of the colour changes.

As before, after making the dress I re-worked the dress pattern to get the stitch chart for the jumper.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Nordic Snowflake # 3

Day sixteen and I am still here, I think it feels like I have been writing these posts a lot longer because I am having to borrow my husband's ancient laptop whilst mine is in the workshop.  I had a call from the computer shop yesterday, it is going to be at least another week before I get my laptop back as, in addition to fixing the driver problem, I need a new 'B' and they are having to order a new keyboard from Dell.

Here is another of the matching dress and jumper sets I have been knitting for my niece, they are for her boy and girl Christmas elves.  Her little boy thinks these elves are 'Elves on the Shelf', they aren't but my niece does not want to spoil their little season game.  However, he gets upset if she sets up their elves to be naughty, therefore I have made them a different outfit for every day and my niece is busy making props for their tableaux.

Today's design is by JulieWilliams but they did not start out as a dress or jumper.  I have adapted these Nordic Snowflakes from a tiny Christmas stocking pattern.  The dress pattern is taken from Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' pattern and and, for the jumper, I used her 'Seasonal Sweaters' pattern.

As you will know by now, the original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toy but these are a little smaller than the Christmas elves I am making these clothes for, so I made these clothes in double knit instead of 4 ply.

It is quite a simple process to convert the snowflake chart to fit the dress and then to rework it for the jumper.  It think it helps that the charts are very similar to cross stitch charts and in the dim and distant past I use to design my own birth samplers.

Dionne


PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

Morning Robin

Day Fifteen of  my personal challenge to make 25 dresses and jumpers to fit my niece's Christmas elves.

The motif of today's matching pair of designs is something of a favourite of my husbands, he loves robins, especially at Christmas. The dress is another of Suzymarie's variations of the Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' pattern and and I used her 'Seasonal Sweaters' pattern for the jumper.

The dress does not really gather in at the bottom, it just looks that way in these photographs because my manikin has a net skirt which cannot be removed and it has pushed out the upper parts of the dress - distorting the shape.

As you will know by now, the original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toy but these are a little smaller than the Christmas elves I am making these clothes for, so I made these clothes in double knit instead of 4 ply.

The name of this design is 'Morning Robin'.   If you look closely you will see that I have added a little black bead for the eye of the robins.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.

I Love Santa

I'm back again with day fourteen of my personal 'Christmas in July' challenge to share with you the miniature outfits I have been knitting for my niece's Christmas elves.  This is the thirteenth of the 25 outfits I have made for her, so we are halfway there.

As you will know by now, the original pattern was designed to fit the 'Little Cotton Rabbits' series of soft toys.  The original patterns were written for 4 ply but, as the elves I have been knitting for are a little larger than the Little Cotton Rabbits, I have made mine in baby soft double knit.

For once Julie Williams had done all of the hard work for me.  The dress came from Julie Williams 'Seasonal Dresses' patterns, it is called ' Hearts and Crosses' and  the jumper came from her 'Seasonal Sweaters' patterns, it is called 'Love Heart'.  These two pattern books are full of helpful tips and detailed descriptions of all the tricky stitches, ideal for the not very experienced knitter.

I added the lettering once the sweater was finished, it was a little fiddly because the 'canvass' is so small and the holes pull the stitches off centre.

Dionne

PS Whilst I really love to read your comments, I will understand if you do not feel you have anything to say about yet another dress and jumper combo, perhaps you could just say hi to let me know that you stopped by.