If you are comfortable with the techniques in this pattern, you should be able to make one of these charming dolls in about three hours. I-cord, knitting on DPNs, and needlefelting are all used. If you prefer, you may use a crochet hook with doubled strands of yarn to create the hair, but needlefelting gives you a wider range of looks.

Once you’ve made your doll, you may want to add embellishments. You can go a little nuts here if you wish! Flowers, beads, bits of lace, they can all give your doll an extra-personal touch.

The exact gauge is not important. It needs to be tight enough that the stuffing in the head doesn’t show through. You can use any weight yarn for this pattern, and the size of the doll will change. You’ll just have to experiment with your needle size to find the gauge you like.

I designed this originally as a stashbuster for myself. All the sample photos are dolls I knit from stash, so I usually don’t actually know what yarn it was anymore. Anything with enough wool content to needlefelt well will work!

Some ideas for hair: singles yarns work nicely. You can knit a swatch of yarn, block it, then unravel it right before you want to add hair for curls. You can also use curly wool locks, dyed or undyed. I have also used loosely spun roving or just plain roving!

One of the nice things about this pattern is that it’s small enough that you can play with it, without being concerned about wasting yarn.