A few weeks ago my husband had to leave town for a class, since he was gone I got a project going to entertain myself after the kids went to bed.

I got this pattern and made a doll for each of my girls.

I'm not sure where I went wrong with the heads, but one is too big, the other is too small and I could have sworn that I followed the pattern exactly both times.  As they are, I think Gwen's (The one with the big head) looks sort of like Charlie Brown and Maggie's looks a bit like a voodoo doll.

My pattern deviations

1. Hair- The pattern told me to sew strips of yarn onto some type of paper and then sew it onto the dolls head, but I just used my crochet hook and strung yarn through the holes in the dolls head.  I made sure to fill the hairline in really well, the crown and part line too.  But for some of the less important areas, I only threaded yarn into holes on every other row of stitches and the hair is still too full.
2. body-I made underpants for them by using a fun color of yarn when I began the body, then when it told me to begin decreasing I switched over to the flesh colored yarn.

But the girls already love them and so I am happy overall.

Some of the things that I noticed about the pattern (good and bad)

1. The doll is a great size because clothes for an 18" doll (American girl style dolls) fit them fairly well.  
2. The hair reminds me of cabbage patch dolls from when I was a kid, so it will probably be great for using to practice braiding and stuff.
3. For the first doll I didn't have to buy any yarn at all.  I just used some scraps that I had in my box of yarn.  So it was basically a free toy.
4. The necks are not very strong so the heads flop back a lot.  (It's possible I didn't follow the pattern well enough.)
5. The dress was too complicated for me to follow, I was catching on, but I kept having to unravel it and start over until finally I decided to get creative and make my own dress.
6. I made about 1 body part a night so if you are working on this in the evenings too, consider that it will take about 6 nights.  (arms, legs, body, head, + 2 nights for the hair)

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I am looking forward to Sam's next business trip (because I'd take cuddling with my hubby, a snack, and our favorite show over a project) but I have a few more toy patterns that I am wanting to try out for Toby that I will get started when Sam hits the road.