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.

Happy Thanksgiving (to my US readers)

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We are waking up to the perfect Thanksgiving weather—dark, damp, and cool. It doesn’t feel like winter any longer; (Yay!) except for a few piles here and there the snow has melted. Soon the house will smell like roasting turkey. It’s just me and my little family enjoying Thanksgiving at home today, but we will have all of the goodies—turkey breast, stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie; needless to say there will be leftovers for a few days, at least.

I am thankful for so many things including all of you, my readers! You can see Riley has a LONG list of all that she is thankful for. (This is a photo of her from 2005).

My husband likes to cook and got busy on the stuffing and potatoes yesterday while I was busy embroidering and finishing up red Christmas dresses and Santa hats for the tines. Isn’t he great?

This was my handful of knitted pieces yesterday morning. I finished the two red sets for Pukipuki and Amelia Thimble. I need to take photos and write up my website pages for them and then they will be for sale to dress a couple of cuties this holiday season. The winter white set will be for Kish Alisha and coordinate with the other winter white sweater dresses I just completed. The aqua blue dress is for Millie.

Major improvement from last weekend, wouldn’t you say? It’s pretty when it snows, but then it is nice for it to melt right away too, in my opinion.

There are still apples on the tree! It is so nice to see the green grass again!

My husband like to pump the excess water off the pool cover to relieve the stress on the plastic cover, so that is what he is busy doing (in case you were wondering).

Our pachysandra is uncovered again. The honeysuckle bush never had a chance to drop its leaves. I wonder if those will fall off now.

This is our golden retriever’s favorite holiday. She gets LOTS of turkey today. Poultry makes our little chihuahua itchy, so he needs to abstain. I’ll give him something else though.

Have a great day everyone (even if it isn’t a holiday for you). I am so thankful for all of you!

Bye for now!

“Santa’s Helper”

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It’s been many years since I’ve made anything new for my Kish Riley, but she finally has something new to show you. This ensemble came about by accident. If you remember, I made the Santa hat (that is now Riley’s) thinking it was for one of the tiny dolls, but I was mistakenly following the pattern for Gina (the pages were next to each other in my book). Because I was using a thinner yarn on smaller needles it came out too small for Gina with way too many stitches for the tinies. Well, it fit Riley perfectly and was the beginning of this ensemble for her. This is her first sweater dress; it took two tries to get the perfect fit, but it was worth the effort, I think.

Look at those rosy cheeks on little Riley! Oh, I’ve missed dressing her!

I just LOVE embroidered sweater dresses on dolls, don’t you?

Here is the photo of my four dolls in their coordinating outfits that I showed you a couple of weeks ago. Like I had said in a previous post, I didn’t plan on making four sets that looked so sweet all together. It was a pleasant surprise!

Riley is my last doll to show you her little ensemble; I think she felt a little bad because she is last. I told her that I am saving the best for last which made her feel oh, so special.

For more information on “Santa’s Helper”, please visit my “Shop What’s New” page at cindyricedesigns.com.

P.S. Riley made me promise to mention to you all that she would LOVE to know how cute you think she is all dressed up for Christmas. Bye for now!

“Snowmen and Candy Canes”

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With our first snowfall now behind us and Christmas right around the corner, it is the perfect time to debut Gina and Lucy’s “Snowmen and Candy Canes” ensemble.

The Little Darlings’ hand knit mohair/silk sweater is embellished with embroidered snowflakes in shades of light blue, crystal seed beads, and a wool felt embellished snowman.