10-06-2020

In practice, the result of the eyelet lace is to create square bumps across the skirt - not quite what I’d expected, but it’s a novel effect!
The pattern also instructs you to pick up for the sleeve with the wrong side facing, but I really couldn’t see the point of that, and the pictures of the complete tunic all appear to show a join picked up from the right side, so I decided to ignore that part….

I knitted down to the start of the ribbing on the first sleeve, then left it on a stitch holder without cutting the wool and picked up (several times, in different directions until I got it right) for the second sleeve in order to see if I had enough wool left to do both. I didn’t think I had, and was expecting to cut the wool and add on ribbing in a contrast colour. But in fact I managed to knit the entire second sleeve with quite a bit left over, so I proceeded to unravel the second sleeve, finish off the first sleeve, and then pick up and knit the second sleeve again.
As it turned out I had about 12 inches of wool left, which was only just about enough to rejoin and sew up the various seams. Very, very tight.

Found a suitable black button to fit the largish buttonhole in the front.

09-06-2020

Puzzled by picking up for the neck.
On looking at the pictures (I was working from a single page text-only printout) I think the intention is that you don’t pick up from either of the garter-stitch ‘placket’ flaps - the extra three stitches cast on at each side of the front - but leave those three overlapping stitches without any collar on both sides. And the reason for picking up from the wrong side (leaving a line of visible bumps on the right side!) is that the collar folds back down across the body and thus needs to be knitted facing inwards, like a turn-back cuff.
A case of a picture being worth a thousand words! Now to unpick and try a third time….

06-06-2020

Tried again with size 9 needles and slightly thicker wool that definitely states itself to be DK (I think the other one may have been a bit on the thin side). This produces a result that can be stretched to 4½“ across without too much effort….
I used a four-row basic offset lace/hole pattern for the skirt: stocking stitch with K2, M1, K2tog on rows 3 and 11, and K4 followed by (m1, K2tog, k2) on row 7 - although in practice I slipped an extra hole into the first 4 stitches (K1, m1, K2tog, K1), which gives an equal number of holes for the offset row, at the expense of having the first two holes only 2 stitches apart instead of 3. The problem was that I couldn’t very well start a row by making a hole as the first stitch!

05-06-2020

I was a bit suspicious about the stated tension so knitted up a trial back bodice piece. It came out pretty much spot on the tension stipulated, but as I’d suspected, it also came out just under four inches wide at the waist.
Even assuming that the narrow bodice width includes significantly set-in sleeves, that’s still going to be too small for a nine-inch waist; I think Sasha Baby dolls must be smaller than Clara’s specimen. On the other hand, the dolly knickers from the same designer measure up at only eight inches across the waist, and judging by the pictures they fit beautifully, as does the ‘negative ease’ onesie pattern… But this tunic isn’t meant to be skintight, surely?

Edit: yes, “Baby Sasha is 12” tall with an 8” waist”