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.

Still Learning DPNs and Having Fun

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I spent the bulk of the day yesterday working on my DPNs. I stopped knitting the hat I showed you yesterday and decided to learn the invisible cast on technique so I could knit from the top down.

You are probably wondering why. Good question and I have a good answer. That white mohair, while so beautiful for its fuzziness, tends to get knitted in with the red wool. It is so fuzzy that for nearly 10+ rows after changing to my red wool I am still trying to get it to stay out of my red stitches. Truthfully, it is nearly impossible to do this 100% and that bothers me if it is avoidable, and it is; the solution is to knit with the white mohair last.

Okay, so that meant learning the invisible cast on. The first thing trying to learn this new cast on taught me is that I am not very coordinated, and I don’t have a photographic memory in the least. I watched the tutorial again and again and again. Hmm, where have I heard those words before? There are four needle movements for every two stitches cast on. Finally, I had to write out a cheat sheet and I was then able to perform the steps four times to get 8 stitches cast on. I won’t lie, it probably took me an entire hour to get this. And then, I kept on practicing it throughout the day to get it down better.

You probably have no idea what my notes mean, but it was all I needed to get this down, sort of.

And, after a day and evening of knitting this is what I made for my Little Darling, Gina!

Here’s my Santa hat, my first DPN project! I had the pom pom left over from last year, so I pinned it on where the one that will match this outfit will go.

For next time, I will use a rewritten pattern to make it a bit longer with a wider “fur” trim band. I also don’t like knitting garter in the round because it involves purling in the round, which I am not comfortable doing, so I will probably knit that part flat and make a short seam for that area. I found pics of garter stitch in the round and it looks seamed anyway.

Oh, Happy October everyone! It really feels fall-ish here todyay, very breezy and cool with puffy white and dark clouds moving rapidly across the sky, but it’s mostly sunny; it’s a very perfect fall day in my opinion. And, the moon is still out at almost 10:00 am!

Thanks for reading and big thank yous for your comments. I love reading them and commenting back. I work by myself all day (except for my dogs, of course), so it is so nice to connect with my readers.

Bye for now!

Knitting on DPNs

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I have tried and tried and tried to knit in the round on double pointed needles. Finally, I got IT! Yay, yay, yay! Does anyone else have trouble with this seemingly simple and elementary knitting skill?

Every time I would try, I’d have needles going every which way; I couldn’t make out what was what, it was a mess, but no more! Look!

Just in case someone else is having similar difficulties this is what worked for me, or should I say my DPN story. Ha ha!

Yesterday morning I purchased a Craftsy class called, New Directions in Lace Hats, by Kate Gagnon Osborne and Courtney Kelley. Courtney was showing a lesson on how to start a hat from the top down which meant using double pointed needles. I was following along with her method and realized that I had never tried casting onto one needle and then moving the stitches to four. This was really easy to do and she shows us how. This eliminated the click clackety mess of needles while casting on, and spreading out my stitches onto four needles instead of three gave more space around and made it easier for me. (The fifth needle is for knitting the stitches on.) I did need to go to You Tube and watch Very Pink’s video on Getting Started with DPNs to go from here, but these two videos together made it all work for me. Thank you so, so much Courtney and Staci!!!

Here are a few more things about this Craftsy class, just in case you are interested. It comes with three lace hat patterns which are quite pretty. I am not a hat person, but my dolls are. There are also a few more things that I think I can learn from this class. I need to go back to study (and practice) Courtney’s invisible cast on for starting hats from the top down. It looks like a great technique. If you crochet, it’s like the adjustable ring or loop. She also goes into how to increase and decrease within a lace pattern. I’ve always wondered about how that works while keeping the pattern flowing. In my opinion, this class was well worth the $14.99 (on sale!) I paid for it.

Now, I want to get back to knitting and finish my hat! BTW, who knows what this will be?

Do you have a DPN story?

Bye for now and thanks for reading!

One More Fall Ensemble

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I have one more fall ensemble and my Little Darling, Gina, is the lucky recipient before I go full steam ahead and create ensembles for Christmas and the holiday season.

I guess fall 2015 is the season of purples. Here’s another ensemble with a shade of lavender and pink, but this one is different. I don’t think I have ever seen a pink like this—cool, but muted. Usually, muted pinks go towards the peach and this one doesn’t at all, nor is it a sweet pink. It is so hard to explain; if I were to mix it up I’d take red and white to make pure pink, add a touch of blue to cool it down, then add a bit of yellow, so it becomes a neutral. Anyway, it is a very pretty and unique shade of pink.

I happened to have the perfect shade of muted lavender wool which matches the stems and vines in the print. For the embroidery, I brought in the merlot color for the colonial knot berries and a coordinating shade of the pink for the bullion, lazy daisy, and back stitched vines and leaves.

I also had the perfectly coordinating shade of merlot heather wool to make a cozy scarf. The scarf can be worn different ways.

Gina didn’t want flowers to hold, she wanted a soft and cuddly teddy bear, so I found this one in a burgundy red and knit him up his own muted lavender scarf with fringe. The scarf is removable too.

This print is very feminine, so lace accents and pearls went nicely with it.