Tag Archives: crochet

“Cute ‘n Cozy Christmas”

I have a new Christmas ensemble for the Little Darlings. I am doing the sale for this set a bit differently, so please read carefully. To give others in some different time zones a chance at purchasing this set, I will be holding a lottery of sorts. If you would like the opportunity to purchase this set I must receive your completed contact form no later that 7:00 pm CST on Saturday, December 5, 2015. I will randomly select a name, I promise to be fair; the winner will receive a Paypal invoice from me to purchase this set. For details as to the price, shipping charges, and areas that I will ship to, please visit my “Shop What’s New” page and click on the appropriate photo.

Now, without further ado, here is my new Little Darling, Lucy, modeling her very first, “only for her” ensemble. If you missed her introduction, I talked about her here and here.

And here’s a photo of Lucy and Gina together. The outfit on the right isn’t included in this sale, but I wanted to show you the two sweeties together.

Here’s the link to my website where you will find all of the information about Lucy’s “Cute ‘n Cozy Christmas” ensemble. Click Here.

Live and Learn When Things Go Wrong

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What do you do when you are working on something, putting your heart into what you are making, and then, something goes wrong?

I was really sad and oh, so disappointed. The hours I spent knitting and embroidering this sweater flashed through my mind as I looked at the stains that a new strand of beads had left behind around the buttonholes. I tried dabbing the worst stain out with water, then tried a tiny bit of Shout, the one stain didn’t budge, so I didn’t even try with the others.

Well, how bad are the stains? Not too bad, in my opinion, but the sweater is not perfect now. 😞 I know that I don’t have it in me to remake this sweater and the stains are very faint, so the sweater isn’t ruined. I removed the offending beads and replaced them with glass beads. If the sweater is buttoned, the stains are totally covered up. And, (ha ha) unbuttoned in a darkened room they are unnoticeable. Hey, I gotta laugh or I’d cry!

But seriously, see not too bad.

Here is the sweater with the new glass beads sewn on and the sweater buttoned up.

And, here is Talyssa during the photo shoot when everything was going perfectly, or so I thought. I liked Gina’s “Ivy and Holly” ensemble so much that I decided to make Talyssa one of her own.

Now, for the learning part and in case you were wondering about these beads. These beads were labeled as “Dyed Bamboo Coral”. I wanted to better understand how this happened and how I could test beads , so I took the strand and rubbed it on an old wool sweater and sure enough there was a faint pink stain left on the wool. Needless to say, I will be staying away from dyed beads.

Talyssa’s “Holiday Darling” ensemble is available (at a special price) on my “Shop What’s New” page at cindyricedesigns.com.

“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.