Author Archives: Cindy Rice

About Cindy Rice

My wonderful husband, my beautiful daughter, and I live in northeastern Illinois with our two sweet chihuahua boys. For as long as I can remember I have loved dolls and making things. I got my first Barbie when I was only three years old! My mom sewed for my Barbie dolls and taught me how to use her sewing machine when I was only seven. I cannot believe she let me near that needle, but she did. Not having enough money for my clothes habit in high school and college led me to start sewing all of my own clothes. There were so many fabric stores around back then and fabric was so inexpensive. I would wait for the 99 cent pattern sale and go crazy. Sewing for myself continued well into my 30’s. (I even made my wedding gown and bridesmaid dresses.) Shortly after I got married I left my full time graphic design position and started designing cross stitch patterns. I called my company “The Lilac Studio” and sold my botanical patterns at trade shows, through distributors which sold to retail shops, and mail order. My most popular pattern, “A Bouquet of Pansies” sold 5000 copies and won a J&P Coats Golden Needle Award! I was also featured in various cross stitch magazines and designed special projects for the magazines. When my daughter was born I didn’t have the time needed to cross stitch and design patterns all day long so I let my pattern design business slip away. And then I started discovering dolls again and I now had an excuse to start buying them. The only problem was that they were for my daughter and not for me. I soon discovered all of the adult collectors out there and decided I would be one of them. I started small at first, collecting Mattel Kelly dolls. Soon I collected over 100 Kelly dolls! After Kelly, I discovered Helen Kish’s Riley and Tonner’s Ann Estelle. I have since learned to knit doll sweaters and love an excuse to knit so most of my doll outfits include a sweater and/or hat. I love creating miniature outfits for dolls and enjoy sharing them with others. Currently I create doll ensembles for Ruby Red Fashion Friends, Kish Bethany, Dianna Effner's Little Darlings, Wilde Imagination's teeny tiny Amelia, Kaye Wiggs BJD, Boneka 10", Linda Macario's Penny.

Thank You & Something for Sugar

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First of all, thank you all for the love and support you showered me with yesterday. It’s amazing how uplifting you all are! I sit all alone and work in my studio day after day, but you all make me feel that I am not really working alone; I feel I am simply in my office which is located in a bigger building. So, thank you all so very, very much!

Today my Fairyland Pukipuki, Sugar, wants to show you her little something in blue. It is a tiny dress knit in a tonal baby alpaca/silk lace weight yarn. I love all of the subtle shades of blue, violet, and pink in this colorway. I’ve used it before here (Little Darlings), here (Amelia Thimble), and here (Amelia Thimble). Although I’ve used this yarn a few other times, this is the first dress I’ve made for Sugar with it. And sadly, it is no longer available, so when my one skein is gone… well, you know… 😦

“Garden of Blues” was finished before “My ‘Blue’-ming Garden” that I showed you yesterday, but Sugar would not agree to let me sell it until now. I told her that I have another dress for her that I am going to dye in a surprise shade of pink, so she relented.

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Sugar enjoyed our photo shoot in the garden very much. She loves how her dress coordinates with all of the flowers that are blooming now. Sugar was especially captivated by the lilac phlox.

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Sugar’s “Garden of Blues” dress will be available tonight at 7:00 pm CST on my website, cindyricedesigns.com. Look for the “Shop What’s New” page.

“My ‘Blue’-ming Garden” and Away with the Blues

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I am happy to say that my mood is no longer “blue” and the sun is shining for the second morning in a row. Thank you for all of the uplifting and helpful comments the last couple of days. It’s been fun hearing from you.

I picked a bouquet yesterday with creeping Charlie (yes, it’s a weed and my husband didn’t think it was funny), phlox, and forget-me-nots.

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The title of Lucy’s ensemble was quite easy to come up with. Outside of the obvious, it’s blue, and everywhere I look outside I see shades of blue/blue violet blossoms.

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Here is Lucy! She is all ready to stroll around the SUNNY garden paths and collect some flowers to make mom a bouquet for Mother’s Day.

This ensemble ended up having more hand made pieces than what I normally make for an outfit; it was quite labor intensive. As I was working on this outfit for the Little Darlings, I felt it needed a hat, and then I felt the sweet little crocheted slippers would be perfect… so I went with it, and just kept on creating. Do you like it?

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The hand knit and embroidered mohair/silk lace weight sweater really is “light as a feather” and so soft. The motifs that I embroidered on the sweater coordinate with the dress print.

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Lucy’s crocheted hat is made with three colors of cotton and two different weights. I wanted it to have the feel of a straw hat, so included a camel color. It is delicately embellished with cotton lace, silk ribbon, blue blossoms, and seed beads. I fussed with the bow to get it to lay “just right”. Everything is carefully hand sewn to this hat with Fray Check added to the ribbon edges. I love how this photo shows off Lucy’s cute profile.

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Lucy’s flower cutting basket is crocheted with hemp. Her flowers can lay in the basket or she can hold them. They are secured with a clear band and silk ribbon.

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I love these girls in ballet styled slippers. Their legs are so graceful. I made these soles out of a matching tan to pick up the natural colors in the hat and basket.

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Gina’s drop waist styled dress is simple and perfect for a garden stroll.

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Lucy had to have matching panties… a hand dyed and tied silk ribbon to match her dress!

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Lucy’s “My ‘Blue’-ming Garden” will be available tonight (May 3, 2016) at 7:00 pm CST, cindyricedesigns.com , link is on the “Shop What’s New” page (at 7pm).

It’s a Sunny Morning!

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It’s beautiful outside! The sun is shining, the sky is BLUE, the birds are singing! Glorious! I snapped a few photos to show you, so I can share my sunshine with you. My kitchen faces west, but you can see shadows in the grass.

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And, out the front door (east) the yard is all nice and sunny. When I am sitting at my kitchen table I can look out both the west facing bay window and the east facing front door.

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You can see the last remaining white magnolia blossoms and to the right is one of our (?) flowering bushes. We also have a larger one which got a little clipping yesterday. I made a bouquet with quite a few of its blossoms. They smell absolutely heavenly!

Does anyone know for sure what these are? We didn’t plant them, so we don’t know. They smell and look like lilacs, but I couldn’t find this variety anywhere on the internet. Last year, I must have found a photo of these because I then thought that they were honeysuckle. I just now searched for honeysuckle and these do not look like the photos I found at all. Hmmm… any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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Thanks to Orli and April for the links to my flower question from yesterday. These are called Creeping Charlie here in the U.S. with a European version called Lamium amplexicaule. Yesterday I discovered this “weed” growing in our yard, but with the fuchsia or magenta blossoms. They are from the mint family, so a bouquet might be nice.