My Crochet Doll: A Fabulous Crochet Doll Pattern With over 50 Cute Crochet Doll Clothes and Accessories- (Anglais) Broché – 31 janvier 2014

I have made the doll and the underwear only so far.

Pros: The patters are so cute. The little photo vignettes are adorable and made me want to MAKE ALL TEH THINGS!!! The different outfits are adorable and there are plenty of opportunities for customizing the doll and the outfits to suit one's fancy. The instructions (where they exist, more on that in the CONS section) are easy to follow and totally spot on. I have rarely found a crochet pattern book that was so well edited. If it says you should have 17 sts at the end of the row, and you don't, you can be certain it's because you missed something and not because of a stupid typo somewhere. (You can probably tell that this is a pet peeve of mine.)

CONS: No gauge is given. She tells you the weight of the yarn and the hook size she used, but if you have different yarn, you're on your own figuring out which hook to use to make things fit right. This was a big deal for me, because I already have so much accumulated yarn that I am absolutely not willing to go out and buy special yarn for these projects. The assembly and finishing instructions are very brief and lacking in detail. The pictures show many different styles of hair, but the instructions for attaching hair are so sparse as to be almost useless. There are really no instructions for the face at all. "Make a stitch for the nose," or something like that was pretty much all she gave. There was a similar "Make a stitch" instruction for giving the doll an ankle, but I didn't figure that one out at all and just skipped it.

The cons may outweigh the pros for some people, especially those less experienced with crochet or with doll-making, or both. In case anyone wonders, I used regular worsted weight yarn for the doll (I believe it was Red Heart), and a 4mm hook. I used a similar weight speciality yarn for the underwear and the same hook, and they fit perfectly. I used instructions from a different doll book I had to make and attach the hair, and I used the same book to come up with a reasonable face. (My daughter was kind of freaked out that the dolly didn't have a mouth, so I had to make her one.) If I find that any of the clothes do not fit with the same weight yarn and the same hook, I'll edit this review to include my variations.

So, my overall rating is probably closer to 3 1/2 stars, but I rounded up to 4 because my daughter loves her dolly and I had a great time making it.

**Edit: I have now made the pyjamas, the t-shirt (basic sweater pattern), and a few pairs of socks/shoes/boots. Since writing my original review, I have found a few possible editing issues. The sock/boot/shoe pattern is a bit weird, the Red Riding Hood dress is problematic, etc. Mostly (besides the RRH dress, which I have no clue what's going on there), I've been able to make the patterns work anyway. I'm dropping my review to 3, just because there are those little things in here that could blindside a relative newbie and I hate when that happens.

The dolls and accessories are absolutely adorable, but I don't think I'll be able to reproduce them as there are no step by step instructions on how to assemble them. I can follow along on the crochet patterns for the clothes without much difficulty, but the lack of pictures makes constructing items such as the travel suitcase, cakes, inflatable raft and the doll itself harder than it should be.

This book needs pictures showing the doll being put together and it also should show how the hair is applied to the doll's scalp. Four more pages of text and photos would've made this book great.

This book is so adorable it's just ridiculous but it is definitely confusing. I am an experienced crocheter and I was still confused by how the head is put together and the hair.
I found a video on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R0vFFGkGhI that helped explain a lot of the parts. It doesn't show any video on crocheting but it explained some of the confusing things. The head is actually made in two parts: the head and the scalp, one being the skin color and the other the hair color. Then you sew those two pieces together. I personally just crocheted the head, changed the color and then crocheted the scalp following the pattern backwards (doing decreases instead of increases) so that it was all one piece.
The hair is put on by folding a piece of yarn in half, putting your crochet hook under one stitch on the head, pulling the loop of the hair yarn under it, and then putting the two end of the hair yarn through the hair yarn loop and pull tight.
This book is definitely confusing but I think worth it for how cute the doll comes out. You just need to have more experience.
I haven't made any of the clothes yet so I will update if I find any good tips for those.

"Fancy dress" pattern doesn't seem to show up in the book, but it's in the pictures on pages 36/37. Kinda frustrating. Maybe I'm just missing it, anyone else able to find it?
My mom made this doll and the red Riding Hood outfit and a couple others from the book. The red Riding Hood dress had the bulge on one side as other reviewers described. She's an experienced crocheter, but still struggled to make lemonade from the lemon instructions given. The pictures are beautiful and inspirational, but instructions are lacking.

First, this is not written in US terminology. So the DC is actually a single crochet and so forth. Other than that, the patterns seem to be ok. But the assembly directions are totally inadequate. The directions for the cardboard pieces of the suitcase are not clearly labeled. This is not a book for beginners.