Finding Doll Crochet Patterns on eBay
by Katherine Long
Most of my patterns came via eBay and very few of them cost more than $10 - most were in the $4 to $6 range.  The same patterns come up in auction after auction so you can wait until the price is reasonable.  But it does mean keeping a close eye on eBay and searching at least once a week.

The basic eBay search of 

crochet* (fd,barbie)
in the subject field will find many of the patterns.  The asterisk means that the search looks for anything starting with the word crochet, so that gets crocheted, crochets, crocheting, etc.FD stands for fashion doll and the abbreviation is commonly used. 

A second search of the subject line

crochet* fashion doll
will find a few more items.

This all assumes that crochet is spelled right, and it often isn't - "corchet" is the most common misspelling.   Some sellers also don't know the difference between knit and crochet, so you have to read their descriptions carefully and look at the photos to decide for yourself.

The two searches above look in all of eBay and will find some things that are not crochet patterns, for example Barbie dolls wearing a crocheted shirt. You can focus the search by just looking in the correct eBay category, which is 
Everything Else:Crafts, Sewing:Crochet:Patterns
then search under

(barbie,fd)
and there are usually about 200 items that match.

You can also set up a standing search on eBay to run periodically and notify you when it finds hits.  I've one that runs daily to look for patterns for Ken, Stacey, and Kelly sized dolls.  It searches titles and descriptions and says

crochet* (ken,stacey,kelly)
Usually it just finds patterns I already have, but occasionally a new one will turn up!
The best place I know of to start a search for free crochet patterns on the Web is Stargazers Crochet and Craft Link Index.
Choose the category Crocheted Doll Clothes.

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