My friend’s daughter and her best friend have been selected to represent their state in gymnastics. My friend thinks that the dolls will help settle the girls nerves as they travel away from family for the first time. The colours on the leotard are as similar as I could get to the girls actual uniform leotard.

I made one set of legs and worked through the torso, but there was a seam on the legs and I wasn’t happy, so I started again doing the legs pure amigurumi style. No joining to make a ring, just working in the round all the way. Much better result.

I had trouble doing the hair as briefly described in the pattern, so I went hunting for tutorials. I didn’t want to use a hair cap. I found this fantastic tutorial
http://www.chocolatemintsinajar.com/craft/2014/02/how-to-...

On one doll I had pre-cut hair strands, so I’ve used the basic anchoring band (ch 45) and pulled the strands through and used a chain (ch 35) inserted instead of the wire. I then used this chain to tie around the hair to secure it. For the second head I’ve used a yellow pipe cleaner. I don’t know how she got the hair to sit flat like it did in her picture, but I’ve opted to go from back to front and move the pull through point clockwise around the head. It sits neat for me and is much easier.

I’ve also lengthened the arms - 88 stitches for the white, I can’t find my notes for the flesh - if you don’t see the stitch numbers, remind me to come back and edit this. ;)

I also placed the eyes closer together, they’re only 6 or 7 stitches apart. I can’t find the label, but the flesh colour is a 5ply - just slightly finer than the yarn for the body, but not noticebly so.

I didn’t bother doing the nose.