11th Doctor knit doll, Purple Coat (Series 7B)

I’ve been wanting to knit the 11th Doctor in his purple coat from series 7B for a long time now!  Here is the finished product:

The 11th Doctor has some really great iconic outfits, including the series 5 red and blue bowtie with tweed, and the series 6 “Let’s Kill Hitler” green overcoat (which I want to knit someday), but personally, this purple one is my absolute favorite.  It first appeared in The Bells of St. John (sans waistcoat):

The waistcoat/fob were added for the Rings of Akhatan episode:

CONSTRUCTION:

I apologize, I honestly got so excited to knit this doll that I didn’t stop at all to take construction photos until he was approaching finished.  His body plan is exactly the same as my other dolls (click on the links to the right to look at them, especially Sherlock), and for his waistcoat, I basically followed the methods I used to make the 10th Doctor’s blue jacket.  Here’s the first picture I did stop and take, where I was laying the parts of the waistcoat on his body and “pinning them in place” (stabbing needles through to hold them).

I thought this looked hilariously like Leonidas at the end of 300, so I couldn’t resist doing this with my other knitting needles:

From here, I started knitting the purple overcoat.  It was really helpful to study the purple coat that came with my Big Chief Studios 11th Doctor, pictured here.  He’s also been really great to help me select colors and figure out how to sculpt the hair correctly.

I used the same construction pattern from coats I’ve knitted for other dolls, like Sherlock.  These are the parts from Sherlock’s coat, basically two front pieces, and a back piece that get sewn together.  This picture is from when I was blocking the pieces (you soak them and then lay them out flat to dry, so they dry in the right shape):

Many of you have asked for patterns for how I make these, and the reason I can’t really write a pattern is because I don’t usually use them.  I use excel drawings like this to show myself where to increase and decrease:

Here I am using the Big Chief purple coat for guidance as I do something I’ve never done before: put a split in the back of the coat…

I didn’t take pictures, but I knitted the arms of the coat in the round on DPNs and attached them to the pieces of the purple coat, now mattress stitched together.  One the coat was finished, one challenge remained… this thing:

Okay, so it’s not really a fob watch, I think I read that it’s called a “double Albert fob chain.”  Whatever it’s called, I think it really makes the outfit, so I knew I wanted to put it on my doll.  Originally I thought about trying to chain stitch and knit the fob, but then I decided to go ahead and use a real chain and bead as the fob.  This required me to learn how to do a little bit of jewelry making.  Here are the materials:

I found all of this stuff at Michaels.  It’s all Bead Landing brand, gold chain (sorry, I threw away the package so I’m not sure of the size), 6 mm jump rings in gold, and specialty findings bead caps in gold filigree for the fob.  I cut one tiny piece of hanging chain for the part that connects to the fob (joined by a jump ring), then ran it up to a jump ring connecting to two longer pieces for the hanging parts, which I secured with two more jump rings directly to the wrong (back) side of the stockinette stitches in the vest.  To secure the whole front part in place, I sewed that center jump ring right in with one of the waistcoat buttons.  Here’s some pics (click any of the three to enlarge it):

Yep, I even put those suspenders on underneath there, even though nobody will probably ever see them!  Here he is all finished and happy (hair and smile put on), with my glasses and sonic screwdriver for scale:

He also joined me for a trip to the NY Ren Faire’s Time Traveler Weekend, where I was cosplaying as Clara in Journey to the Centre of the Tardis:

In other exciting news, I now I have business cards for my etsy store, where this doll is currently listed!  Here’s the front:

And the back: