Monthly Archives: January 2017

New Knitting Pattern

Happy Friday to everyone! I finished my sweater dress pattern (earlier than expected, yay!) for the Little Darlings. If you read yesterday’s blog post, “A Little Wish for Spring”, you saw the sample I made for this pattern. (The beret Alice is wearing is from my beret pattern.)

This sweater dress pattern has two sleeve lengths, short (shown) and elbow length. I’ve also included two dress lengths. I made the shorter length for “A Little Wish for Spring”. The longer length is the same width, but with 8 additional rows. The pattern guides you through the raglan bodice and then the increases to form the a-line skirt shape. BTW, as most of my knitting patterns are, this dress is knit all in one piece! The dress is made with fingering weight wool; I used Palette from Knit Picks in Blossom Heather.

My sweater patterns are made with ease to be worn over a dress. This sweater dress pattern, however, is made so that the dress fits on the doll without ease. It is a cute, fitted bodice, no bagginess. Dianna Effner created the most adorably sculpted Little Darling dolls, so I like to highlight their cuteness when I design for them.

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The sweater dress is the perfect canvas for embroidery or other embellishment. I’ve included photos from some of my other Little Darling sweater dress embroidery to spark you creativity.

This pattern is available on Ravelry.

Bye for now! Thanks for stopping by!

“A Little Wish for Spring”

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So far winter has not gotten the best of me. It should have really; we’ve had a LOT of extremely gloomy days! However, I am enjoying the coziness inside my house with cups of tea, twinkle lights around the window, and a fire in the fireplace.

So . . . Alice and I are only sending out “A Little Wish for Spring”. It is so nice to see roses, even if they are the embroidered kind.

I chose Alice to model this ensemble because she looked the prettiest in it. Her coloring goes perfectly with warm, neutral, and rosy colors. This pink yarn is a little bit neutral—it is a heathered yarn with very faint hints of lavender and warm red. So all three primary colors are accounted for to make this yarn a neutral color even if it is “pink”.

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Alice’s beret features a hand made silk ribbon bow in a hand dyed warm lavender with ecru pearls decorating the center. (Alice’s beret is knit from my beret pattern which is available for your knitting pleasure.)

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I chose the embroidery colors from my notes when I made Patsy’s sweater dress. I added the very pale peachy pink colonial knots for a pop of light. You can see Patsy’s sweater dress set here.

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I am currently working on this sweater dress knitting pattern which will be ready for purchase very soon. It will have two sleeve length options and two dress length options. This is the short sleeved and shorter length version. The Little Darlings have adorably shaped arms and legs which I like to show off.

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Alice’s “A Little Wish for Spring” will be available tonight (January 12, 2017) at 7:00 pm CST, cindyricedesigns.com.

How about you? Are you faring well this winter? I’d love to hear about your winter where you live.

In Progress Around Here

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The first week of January has, of course, flown by! With my daughter still home (by the way, I love having her home; I am not at all complaining, just mentioning it. 🙂 ) I am not getting as much done as I normally do, but I am making some progress on a sweater dress for the Little Darlings, and also writing a pattern as I go.

I finished up the embroidery on the sweater dress yesterday, and got the buttons sewn on. I chose a pink wool heather since I needed some pink in my life after all the red and green Christmas colors, and before that, autumnal colors. The very subtle shades of lavender and warm red in this pink heather make it a yarn choice that I go to again and again.

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This is the only piece of the ensemble completed. I’m still trying to decide on either a headband or beret.

Right now all three of my Little Darlings are clamoring to model this ensemble for me. Hmm, I wonder whom it will be . . .

On another note, yesterday was a day of putting away Christmas and making an “Unthanksgiving Dinner” to get rid of extra Thanksgiving ingredients that have been hanging around in the freezer and pantry. The end result was so much like a real Thanksgiving dinner; the only thing we didn’t have was a pumpkin pie!

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My daughter turned her dinner into a healthier version with turkey (no gravy) and a zucchini sliced like spaghetti. She uses a spiralizer to make her “zucchetti”.

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Even though it’s great to get the house back in order, it’s sad to put all of the decorations away. The house seems so dark without the Christmas tree lights twinkling in the living and family rooms. We do leave the strands of white lights around the kitchen bay window; I enjoy them very much on these dark days.

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