Brandy Fortune - Just Like Me Knits: Matching Patterns for Kids and Their Favorite Dolls

Text and photographs copyright 2013 by Brandy Fortune

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Craft, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
wwww.pottercraft.com

POTTER CRAFT and colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fortune, Brandy.
Just like me knits / Brandy Fortune. -- First Edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Knitting--Patterns. 2. Childrens clothing. I. Title.
TT825.F67 2013
746.432--dc23
2012020351

eISBN: 978-0-7704-3437-3

Photography by Brandy Fortune
Illustrations on used with the permission of Rachelle Anne Miller

The author and publisher would like to thank the Craft Yarn Council of America for providing the yarn weight standards and accompanying icons used in this book.
For more information, please visit www.YarnStandards.com.

v3.1

For Sydney and Rowan, who always inspire me, and for Jesse, who always supports me.

Quite a few years ago I started listening to knitting podcasts. There werent many around at that time. It was the early days for the pairing of technology and knitting. One day I was checking to see if any new knitting podcasts had become available and I ran across the Pixie Purls podcast. The host was a bright, cheerful young woman from Georgia who earnestly explored knitting and shared her findings through her podcast and blog. I loved listening to who I now know is none other than Brandy Fortune.

I followed along to every episode and blog post, as Brandy became a mother for the first time and then the second time. She dove into parenthood headfirst and fell head over heels in love with all that it entails, similar to the way she embraces her knitting. I could relate to Brandy on so many levels. I started my own knitting career with little ones on my lap and running around at my feet. It is not an easy thing to do.

With dewy love and appreciation for parenthood, Brandy began designing knitwear for her young daughters. Through her firsthand experience with young children and years of knitting experience, Brandy knows exactly what knitters want in a pattern. Her designs always hit the mark for beautiful simplicity, practicality, and an uncanny understanding of what and how knitters want to knit, especially when it comes to knitting for children. This combination of experience, skill, and understanding is a rare find.

It was a few years ago that Brandy noticed an unfilled gap in the online knitting community and it was in line with her own interests in knitting as the mother of two young children. Brandy and Allegra Wermuth, her online knitting friend and fellow parent, began moving into uncharted territory by creating an online magazine, PetitePurls.com, that offers childrens knitting patterns along with articles and features about parenthood and living a creative lifestyle. Petite Purls also put Brandys other love (yes, there is another love), photography, at the forefront. Brandy photographs many of the knitwear designs and beauty shots for Petite Purls. With her bag overflowing with skills, Brandy is one of the most talented and versatile young knitting designers in the industry today. She does it all with great style, passion, and love.

Brandys quick rise in the knitting industry does not surprise me. She has worked hard, and it is clear she has an undeniable passion for her work. When I heard she was writing a knitting book I immediately became excited. Of course, it would be a thoughtful, beautiful book of knits for young children. When I learned that Brandy was photographing and designing everything in the book, I knew with certainty that it would become a treasured and well-used collection for years to come. She has taken her experience as a parent, her nostalgia and current love of dolls and educational toys, and her passion for childhood and its adventures, and combined it all to create this book in front of you.

The only way to truly understand Brandys passion for children, learning, and knitting is to dive right into the pages of this innovative book she has thoughtfully created. With nearly thirty-eight knitting patterns (nineteen patterns for children and matching patterns for dolls), hand-sewing basics, and five sewing patterns, this book is destined to become a great resource for generations to come.

Brandy is a role model for our online knitting community. She is deeply rooted in family, in living a creative lifestyle, in taking the time to nurture and appreciate children, and in making the world a better place. She is passionate and earnest to a fault and that is apparent in the pages ahead of you.

I encourage you to take Brandys lead as an example of knitting for the small but always living large at the same time!

Susan B. Anderson

If you had told me seven years ago that not only would I be a knitter, but that I would be a knitwear designer and author, I would not have believed you. But when my husband and I settled down in a small suburb of Atlanta, we purchased an acre of land for our dogs and, with plans to have kids, I suddenly felt very lost and out of touch. I was bored in our quiet house and signed up for what I thought was a crochet class at a local yarn shop. In that first class I was informed we would most certainly not be learning how to crochet and that I must go buy some needles. Why not, I thought, this could be fun. So began my knitting adventures. A few years later my first daughter, Sydney, was born, and suddenly I found myself at a loss for knitting patterns that I actually wantedand had timeto knit. When Sydney was six months of age, I designed my first childrens pattern, just for her.

And now, five years later, this book began just as simply, with a sweet little hooded jacket I worked up in garter stitch for one of my daughters dolls (). Id recently become a bit obsessed with the Waldorf-style cloth dolls made of natural materials and found myself doing some online stalking to see if I could get a handcrafted Bamboletta Dollfor my daughters, of course, although the truth is that I may love them even more than they do.

The idea of a doll, made by hand and of natural materials, made sense to me as a parent and double sense to me as a knitter who could appreciate the handspun and dyed yarn hair, as well as the hand-carded wool stuffed inside. Todays doll makers add funky colors and textures to the hair, a splash of color to the eyes and a smile, a bit of rose to the cheeks and tiny freckles on the nose. They are just too adorable to resist. When a mom is stuck in a chair with a baby asleep on her lap and a computer within typing distance, shes bound to be up to no good! In my case a few of these dolls quickly became a collection. I have no doubt that eighty-plus years ago there was a mother in a rocking chair ogling the Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog. Husbands like mine may not approve of this sort of activity, but my mom always said that if the mother is happy, the baby is happy!