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.

Green and Red

6 Replies

After showing you my stack of Christmas fabrics in Monday’s post, I picked out two of them to start my holiday ensembles. I picked out my favorites, so I would have the best possible chance of getting in the holiday spirit. (I’ll share with you what those two favorites are soon.) Yesterday and this morning were spent knitting a sweater and hat to go with the first fabric that I picked out. So far so good…I’m making progress. In the meantime, I went through my studio and snapped more photos of all things red and green.

Off the subject, but continuing with the green (and a bit of red) theme…

Did you know it’s National Guacamole Day? I love avocados and try to eat a few every week. However, the grocery store that we shop at was completely out of avocados last Friday. This is a big grocery store with a huge produce department and they didn’t have one avocado for sale, very strange. I wonder if they were being hoarded by someone in anticipation of National Guacamole Day. Hmm…

To help tie these two very dissimilar subjects together, here’s the Grinch (Christmas) made out of guacamole (avocados)! If you click on it, it will enlarge and take you to Pinterest where you can pin it, if you’d like.

Hope you’re enjoying Wednesday. Summer is back here in northern Illinois and tomorrow will be even hotter.

Bye for now!

Grape Crush

4 Replies

Growing up I loved anything grape flavored: lollipops (or suckers, as we called them), grape soda (Grape Crush was the best), popsicles, Kool-Aid. I even liked the grape flavored cough medicine. I must have over dosed on artificial grape flavoring and purple coloring over and over again; we had no idea back then that it might not be good for us. My mom did limit our sugar consumption, so that, at least was a good thing.

Why am I talking about grape? Well, this yarn that I used to knit Millie’s new sweater dress reminded me so much of all things flavored grape and I didn’t need to consume anything potentially bad for me in the process. It is a gorgeous purple heather: hot pink, raspberry, navy blue, and tints of purple make up this most dimensional yarn. Even though I loved this yarn on its own, when I added the vibrant colors of embroidery this yarn came alive.

Millie’e eyes are Glib in slate blue. In real life they look like they look puple-ish when paired with this dress. You can find them here. I cannot say enough about how much I love this wig on Millie. You can find it here. Millie wears a 6-7 wig and this one is in pale pale blonde.

Millie’s short sleeved wool sweater dress nips in at the waist and then has a slight flair to the skirt. It is shorter in length to look cute paired with tights. These tights are in a light weight raspberry heather cotton knit; I love it when I find the perfect color in my stash.

If you’d like more information on Millie’s “Fall for Purple” sweater dress ensemble, please visit my “Available for Sale” page at cindyricedesigns.com.

Bye for now!

Is it Too Early?

16 Replies

To be thinking about creating Christmas ensembles??? Well, I’ve been thinking about them since July, and now it’s time to start acting on all of that thinking. Yes, Christmas is months away, but I need time, lots of time!

Christmas outfits are my very favorite and I never get as many done as I’d like to, so I am starting EARLY this year. You may think, way too early, and you may be right, but I am already in the mood for red and green, Santa hats and Christmas fabric, embroidered holly, fluffy white mohair yarn that looks like snow…

Here are some pieces of my Christmas fabric. Some of it is new this year, some I never got to last year, and some got made into ensembles last year. Here are some photos of those ensembles from last year.