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Writer's pictureBarbara Prime

Mystery Knit-Along 2023 - Week 1

I hope everyone has been able to access their first clue without any issues. If you bought the pattern from my shop, you should have received an email from me, with the two pattern files attached (one with the instructions, and one with photos). If you bought the pattern on Ravelry, the update will be in your library, and you should have an email with a link to download the files.


Have you had time to look over the first clue, or even make a start at knitting the toy? This week's part of the pattern has a lot of small pieces, but they're all fairly easy and quick to knit. Then you have the fun of putting them all together to complete the little companion toy! I've named her Lucy. Can you guess why?


I hope you'll share your progress wherever you feel comfortable doing so, either here, on Ravelry, or on social media (I've been posting on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Mastodon).


Below I've shared a few photos from the toy I've made, with some tips I think could be useful. If you need more help knitting the pieces, or putting them together, you can check out this album on Flickr. You can enlarge the photos there, to see more detail. I'll be adding extra photos each week, so it's a good place to check on with each new clue.


a small knitted doll, with brown hair in a ponytail, wearing an orange and brown striped tunic
Lucy, the companion toy for this year's mystery knit-along

If you've participated in past knit-along events, you might recognize this design from the fairy that is part of my Unicorn pattern. For this new pattern, I've modified the shaping, and given her a different hair style and outfit. I love this tiny doll so much, and I really hope you'll have fun making her.


a small knitted doll, shown in a close-up of the face. It has brown plastic eyes.  A small nose, and a pink mouth have been embroidered.
A close-up of Lucy's face

I wanted to share a little tip with you, that might be useful when you're finishing the face. The head of the doll tends to be quite round when it's stuffed, and I wanted to give it a better shape around the eyes. So, I used the shaping method from this tutorial, starting the stitches from the back of the neck, and making the tiny shaping stitches at the inside-corner of each eye. This also helps the eyes to face forward, instead of slightly askew, which might happen if the head is rounder.


a knitted tunic, with a fringed hem, pocket, and one-shoulder design. Striped in orange, cream, and brown.
A close-up of Lucy's tunic, showing the pocket

Lucy's tunic is a simple shape, and introduces a technique I use in a few of my patterns: casting on stitches at the end of a row. In this case, the series of cast-on and bound-off stitches creates a fringe around the hem. The first one or two might be fussy, if you're new to this technique; but with 9 repeats, you'll get into the rhythm of knitting them.

Knitting the tunic sideways allowed me to make the fringed hem with the above technique, and also creates vertical stripes if you're using a variegated yarn. Don't forget to leave her an armhole when you're sewing up the side seam. I also decided to add a tiny pocket, because every garment needs at least one!

If you're having any issues getting the tunic to fit your doll, it's easy to adjust the size by changing your needle size, or adding/removing repeats of the 4-row stitch pattern. You could also potentially add/remove stitches in the stockinette portion of the tunic to adjust the length, if you're comfortable making that kind of modification.

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