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.

“Ivy and Holly”

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Last December I wrote a post about my favorite doll books, one of them being The Story of Holly & Ivy. You can find that post here. I LOVE this story, and even now while writing this blog post, this book is open in front of me. The illustrations are so cozy and sweet, and the story is absolutely endearing about a beautiful Christmas doll who finally finds her girl.

After I completed this ensemble for my Little Darling, Gina, my daughter commented on how she was reminded of the doll, Holly, in Holly & Ivy. Even though Gina isn’t dressed the same or even have the same color of hair she does seem like a modern day Holly.

Here is sweet Holly illustrated by Barbara Cooney.

Gina’s sweater is hand knit out of mohair/silk lace yarn. I embroidered two mirrored image Christmas bouquets at each top corner.

The tiny stocking is crocheted with merino/silk lace yarn and can hold the little bouquet or other treasures.

Do you like Gina’s tiny jingle bell bracelet?

For more information on Gina’s “Ivy and Holly” ensemble please visit my “Shop What’s New” page at cindyricedesigns.com .

Happy Halloween

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Happy Halloween! We’re waking up to a wet and dark Halloween. Hopefully it will improve; they say it it will.

Last year trick or treating was during a rainstorm and the temperature was in the 30s (brrr) and very, very few children came around, maybe three. Really, who could blame them, wet AND cold! My husband had lots and lots of candy bars to munch on until Christmas; I’m sure he didn’t mind.

In honor of Halloween I have collected past photos of my girls dressed for the occasion.

Hope you have crisp, fall weather for the trick-or-treaters! Enjoy the day! Bye for now.

Math & Knitting

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Yesterday morning was spent getting a knitting pattern together, so that Talyssa can have her very own fuzzy mohair sweater. I wanted to use a larger needle size since Talyssa is a bigger doll, and I didn’t want to be knitting her sweater for days and days and days on end. My mohair/silk yarn is lace weight and it is already quite “airy” for the smaller dolls, so I thought that holding two strands of yarn together to make a heavier yarn would work great on larger needles.

I started figuring things out by knitting a swatch with the same needle size that I use for Talyssa’s basic wool sweater and then evaluated it. The fabric was a bit dense and stiff, I thought. I knit another swatch on a size larger needles and thought it looked just right, nice and “airy”.

The next step was to start with Talyssa’s basic wool sweater pattern and adjust the stitch counts and rows using the new gauge. After some division, multiplication and number rounding, I had a pattern to start with.

I love doing this kind of math work! Who knows why! I would think that it would make me want to pull my hair out, but for some reason I find it mentally invigorating.

Now to knit. And, I did, all afternoon and evening on Tuesday, and hoping and hoping that it would come out perfect. At “bedtime” on Tuesday I only had 12 more rows to go, and it is all body knitting, easy! The sleeves got finished on Tuesday night, they seemed to take forever, turning my work constantly, it seemed. Talyssa has long arms.

I finished up Talyssa’s sweater before Wednesday afternoon started. I did a quick try on before blocking and it will fit her! Yay! Now I will get started on her dress. I took a photo of Talyssa’s sweater next to one for the Little Darlings to see the size difference. Yes, they are quite different in size, but what I thought was even more interesting was the difference in lot colors of the yarn. Talyssa’s was knit with a couple of skeins that I just received and the Little Darling’s was knit with yarn that I received earlier in the year.