Category Archives: little darlings

Another Springtime Sweater Dress for the Little Darlings

I loved the last sweater dress that I made for the Little Darlings so much that I immediately started on another one. This one is in pink and also has 10,000+ stitches.

As I was working on the embroidery for this dress I felt as if I were drawing (or painting) with a needle and thread. The first half of the top motif and the first half of the waistline motif (the second half is mirrored) went bit by bit as I was trying to achieve good color balance and a pleasing floral composition. Sometimes my motifs take longer to work out and this one did indeed take longer.

The embroidery may have been painstaking, but I am very pleased with the end result. The motifs are feminine, colorful, balanced and flow smoothly along the waistline, so mission accomplished.

For more information on Gina’s “So Pretty in Pink” sweater dress ensemble please visit my “Available for Sale” page on cindyricedesigns.com .

On Making Sweater Dresses

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Oh, how I wish I were a faster knitter! My favorite things to make for dolls are sweater dresses and out of all of the pieces I knit, sew, and crochet they take the longest. So, so many stitches, and the finer the gauge the more stitches that are needed to complete the dress.

I could probably knit 3-4 sweaters in the time it takes to knit ONE dress, oh, but I LOVE them so. Who knows why! A beautiful doll in a hand knit and embroidered dress is the sweetest sight to me.

This bamboo dress I just made for the Little Darlings is knit on smaller needles than what I normally use for my bamboo sweaters. I thought it would need a tighter gauge to keep all of these stitches in shape. Anyway, it took “a while” to knit so I quickly counted up my stitches, 10,000+. That’s a lot of knitting!

Once I had (finally) finished knitting the sweater dress it wasn’t time to celebrate even though I felt that I should. I had a blank canvas staring at me. Unlike embroidering a sweater to coordinate with a dress I had nothing to go on, only my imagination and a lot of real estate. Where to put the embroidery? What colors to use? I was tempted to procrastinate as I wasn’t really sure where to start. But, no, nothing gets done then, except maybe a lot of snacking and who needs that?

Start with what you know has become my mantra whenever I feel like a little procrastination and snacking is in order. I knew I wanted pink roses centered on the front bodice so I embroidered those on first. After embroidering the pink roses under the neckline, the rest of the design and color palette came together quickly. 🙂 It’s funny how the hardest part is starting something where the end result is unknown.

For more information, on Gina’s “Springtime Roses” ensemble please visit my “Available for Sale” page on cindyricedesigns.com .

“Sunshine Day” for the Little Darlings

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Since sunshiny days are so difficult to find this spring, I made a new ensemble for the Little Darlings that is filled with the warmth of yellows and pinks. It’s sure to brighten your day as it did mine while I was making this set.

The photo below highlights how delicate my mohair/silk lace sweaters are. It is especially difficult to embroider on such an open knit as the embroidery threads easily show through to the front of the sweater.

(The lemon yellow/pink roses remind me of strawberry lemonade.)

I had the perfect colors of bicone crystals in my stash (thanks to my sister’s bead destashing last summer) to use for the bracelet; pastel blue, yellow, and pink match perfectly and add a bit of sparkle. I also found a pastel yellow Swarovski crystal butterfly that matched the bicone crystals and used it for the end of the purse’s dangle. Since there isn’t a heart on the bracelet I sewed a pink heart to the inside of the purse to show that this ensemble was made with love.