Voila!

I freely admit it- this pattern  nearly kicked my butt, from the beginning with the Pleated Skirt from Hell, which taught me many new, bad, words, to the sweater, which took me nearly as long to knit as an adult-sized one.

But, I did it.

You'll remember that here's where I was yesterday morning:

With completed but unassembled pieces. Since last night was an American Idol Free Tuesday, I put them together.

 Here is the armhole steek reinforcement. The pattern recommends using a sewing machine, a recommendation I heartily endorse. But the pattern didn't offer to go upstairs and bring the machine down. And the pattern definitely didn't clear a spot at the kitchen table, so I did the steek reinforcement by hand. When I teach this in a class, I use highly contrasting yarn for the reinforcement, but this wasn't for class, and I wanted the stitching to disappear. Which it did. Sorta.

 Cutting your knitting is easy! It's fun! Seriously! No, seriously.

 Armhole open, and lookie- nothing is coming apart. No raveling, no screaming, no tearing of the hair. Just a nice armhole.

And here's the sleeve sewn in place. One thing I do like about this pattern is the facing built into both the sleeves and the neckline edge. It gives a smooth, even line for stitching and the little facing sews down to cover most of the raw cut edges.

See? Nice and neat.

Even for a translation (which was hilarious in parts), this pattern is pretty sketchy. The neck treatment instructions basically say: sew a couple of buttons.  So I tried the sweater on the doll and decided where the buttons would best be placed and then crocheted loops for them. It works just fine, but I'll tell you- none of my editors would let me get by with saying figure it out for yourself.

Doesn't look all that different from the top picture, does it? Except now, it's assembled, washed and blocked.

And this is what it looks like on the proper sized doll! Gorgeous, no?

I made the sleeves a good inch shorter than the pattern called for, and I could have shortened them another inch (which would have made this job a lot easier- knitting Fair Isle with just 48 sts on dpns is a pain- I'd much rather work on 400 sts and a circ). But otherwise, the sweater fits very well.

I had already decided against knitting the shoes, because I think they look silly. And I decided last night not to make the tights because they'll be bulky (and boring). But I've cast on the hat, and I will probably knit the little white collar.

Voracious Reader has the skirt at her house, so we'll have to wait until she gets the rest of the outfit to see the whole thing together. I'm sure I can get her to take a picture.

 It was worth the work, but trust me, I'm not knitting this pattern again.