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.

My Workspace Today

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Good afternoon! Just wanted to share with you what I am doing today. I have four dress/hat sets that are in progress for Amelia Thimble dolls. Currently I am sewing the beads on for buttons and weaving in ends. Then they need a fine water mist and time to dry (to set the buttonholes). Then they are ready for the fun stuff, embroidery.

Amelia wanted to hold up one of the little elf dresses for you. She is so helpful, isn’t she? This one is knit out of over dyed alpaca/silk light red lace weight yarn with a kid mohair/silk lace edging that looks like white fur trim. There is another elf dress to be embroidered; this one in red merino/silk yarn. A sky blue and light pink kid mohair/silk dress and hat set are also waiting to be finished. Oh, and I have six other sets completely finished! I will get those photographed soon…!

I’ve come to love hand sewing and embroidering on this June Taylor quilt board. (You can see it in the background.) I also use it for blocking my knits. It is padded so pins can be stuck into it, the color allows me to find things easily, and the fabric is a coarse cotton so beads and needles don’t roll around. I can also set it on my lap if I want to work in a chair or on the sofa. It is 18″ x 25″ which I find is a good size for a spreading my supplies out. The link goes to a site where I found one in this size. I purchased mine many years ago at a local sewing store.

Back to work for me. Hope you enjoyed seeing what I’m working on today.

Patsy’s New Fall Outfit

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Tonner’s Patsy doll has a new sweater and skirt set that she wants to model for you. I tried something different this time and made her a gathered skirt with an a-line sweater. This corduroy print is so pretty with so many different fall colors.

I picked out seven colors of wool for the sweater. Who could pick just one??? Yes, the weaving in of the ends was a lot of work, but well worth the effort, don’t you think? I thoughtfully arranged the stripes to look their best and got to repeat the first three colors once more. The sleeves and body came out the perfect length (and exactly the same!) which made me very happy. I felt like I had good knitting karma (or the knitting gods) with this one.

For more information about Patsy’s new skirt/sweater set please visit my website.

Amelia Thimble’s New Dresses from the Garden

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Look what bloomed from my needles (both knitting and embroidery needles) recently. I love making these hand knit and embroidered dresses for Amelia Thimble so much and my Amelia loves modeling them for you.

These four dresses are quite a colorful bunch. Each is hand knit with a different yarn. From left to right: kid mohair/silk (Aloft), bamboo thread (Aunt Lydia’s), hand dyed merino/silk (Gloss), and a tonal baby alpaca/silk (Shimmer).

This yarn produces very faint stripes in baby blue, lilac, and a blue in between the two.

I had tiny bits left from a previous knitting project of both of these hand dyed colors in my stash. It was just enough to make this pink and blue set for Amelia. The hat is knit with both colors also. The photo doesn’t show it, but the top is knit in blue. I added a very thin sparkly ecru ribbon embroidery thread for a bow. It’s itty bitty, teeny tiny.