I must be the most deeply sad woman alive. And , the most obscurely focused on knitting.

“Look at those! Look at the turned ends! They are perfect miniature Brittany Birch needles!” I gushed.

Ben rolled his eyes.

“Just eat the bloody olives! If you like them so much take a couple home.”

Poor man – he has a lot to put up with

2 of the 4 cocktail sticks went in my purse – unused of course!

This is what a Brittany Birch needle looks like….

and here’s my fabulous cocktail sticks miniature knitting needles..

OK no idea of scale there…

This is Barbie’s current WIP, on hand made wooden needle with “jewelled ends” and a pound coin to give scale…

(OK – They are cocktail sticks with Rowan beads rammed on the end! )

She keeps complaining the needles are rough and snag – that’s why she hasn’t done much.

And here is the bag she keeps all her knitting in…

It’s from a pattern in Knits for Barbie, which I reviewed here a while ago, made with embroidery thread!

I asked Barbie to model with the new needles. She just said,

“Shhhh! Come back later! I’ve got to finish my row!”

I left them in her bag for her….

Look at that….Who’d have though Barbie would knit English style???

The photography and layout are inspiring and easy to use. The garments are varied but an awful lot of tops – I was hoping for more trousers and skirts and more tailoring – there are hundreds of Barbie roll neck jumper patterns out there!

The bags, scarves and hats are super though -especially the intarsia knitting bag which I’ve stocked with cocktail stick needles, mini skeins, a ball of wool and a half made Barbie scarf…

From

For relaxing an knitting, Barbie is wearing an Argyle sweater from the book too – Made with the recomended Paterna yarn that I managed to find cheaply on ebay.

This jacket is good too but I picked up a size too large needles – easily done…

My big gripe about this book is that they mostly use VERY fine tapestry, crotchet or embroidery threads rather than knitting yarns. The effect of several garments is down to having a specialist thread sold in very small quantities and from what I can see, only available in the USA (the rainbow gallery threads especially) – making a Barbie garment cost IRO £12 – too much for me!

Don’t buy this book if you’re expecting to use up oddments of 4ply from your stash – it’ll be too thick for most of the patterns. You’ll be better off with an old Sirdar or Patons doll booklet in my opinion (I’ve knit lots of these too!)

Here’s some I made earlier from Sirdar “Playmates” book in 4ply…

From

I think Rowan should issue some Barbie patterns using Rowan yarn for use by Rowanettes!! I can feel a Barbie miniature of some of my favorite Rowan designs coming on….another day perhaps.
To make this book work, you’ll need to be prepared to makes lots of mini swatches to get close to the sometimes strange gauge required.

Yarns used are :-
. Cotton Perle by DMC (Hobbycraft’s cheap bumper pack of craft thread works very very for this)
. Parternayan Persian Tapestry by JCA (Paterna in the UK)
. Cashmere be Grignasco
. Richesse Et Soie by Knit One Crochet Two
. Knit-Cro Sheen by J&P Coats
. Furore by Lang
. Matt Tapestry Cotton Art by DMC
. Tiny Tresses by Twice as Nice
. True 4 ply Botany by Rowan (Yipee, one I had!!)
. Metalica by Berroco
. Doucer et Soie by Knit One Crochet Two
. Alpaca by Rainbow Gallery
. Cashmere by Rainbow Gallery
. Frosting by Knit One Crochet Two
. JAWoll cotton superwash by Lang
. Perle Cotton by DMC
. Tapestry wool by DMC
. Artic Rays Wispy Fring by Rainbow Gallery
. Fuzzy stuff by Rainbow Gallery
. Laine Corbert Tapestry wool by DMC
. Retors a Broder by DMC
. Retors Mat by DMC
. Angora by Rainbow Gallery
. Very Velvety by rainbow gallery
. Cresta d’Oro by Rainbow Gallery
. Rainbow elastic by Knit One Crochet Two
. Party by Grignasco
. Cashwool by Lang

Needle sizes used are 2mm, 2.25mm, 2.5mm, 3mm.
typical gauge needed per square inch are (stitches to rows) 6×9, 5×11, 8×10, 13×18, 9×12, 15×19, 8×11, 6×10, 7×8, 9×16(??)