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 .