Life Cycles

With 50 years of living behind me, I find it interesting how your interests change over the years.  When I was a child, books and dolls were my primary interests.  My mother taught me to knit scarves and I had a spool knitter which I used to make yards and yards of cord.  Gradually I started sewing little dresses for my dolls.  I learned to cross-stitch and embroider.

When I was 10, my mother showed me how to use her little Singer featherweight sewing machine.  The garments I made for my dolls became more refined.  I learned to crochet doilies using fine hooks and thread.  I learned to needlepoint.  I began making miniature items, and making my own dolls.  I started studying old dolls and trying to recreate their garments.

Entering my teens, I started sewing my own clothes.  I acquired reproductions of old china head dolls and dressed them.  I developed an interest in Japan and created a Japanese doll house and dolls using ideas from the Rumer Godden book, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.  By this time my needlework skills were pretty advanced, and I could sew just about anything I wanted.  My interest in old dolls was increasing.

For graduation, I received a large bisque-headed German doll.  This was my first introduction to actually owning a genuine antique.  She needed a lot of tender loving care, but sparked the collector in me.  Over the next few years, I acquired a small collection of antique dolls and studied the appropriate clothing for them.  I learned how to make my own porcelain dolls using purchased molds, bought a kiln, and made a small business of making and dressing small dolls. 

In my 20s, I became a mom and sewed most of my own and my daughter's clothes, with a little bit of knitting sweaters, hats, and mittens for her on the side.  I designed and sewed costumes for our local ballet company and studied the construction of tutus.  My focus on dolls shifted from all kinds of antique dolls to French fashion dolls, specifically from about the 1850s to 1890s, and small all-bisque dolls.  I purchased a couple of reproduction French fashions and started a lifetime project of creating wardrobes for them.  I discovered Tasha Tudor and A is for Annabelle.  I purchased a doll I could use for my Annabelle and added her wardrobe to the lifetime project list.  These interests continued unabated through the next decade.  Somewhere along the way I added in quilting.

Entering my 40s, I added decorative painting to my crafting interests and, for a while, the painting overshadowed the sewing and everything else.  Then, coinciding with a return to working full-time, came an all-encompassing passion in knitting socks.  I became reinterested in my dolls, and started sewing new garments for the French fashions and Annabelle. 

Now in my mid-50s, I have a multitude of wonderful hobbies to choose from at any given time.  I sew, knit, paint, quilt, cross-stitch and am dressing my dolls.  I've researched  and sewed the modern diapers for my little grandson.  I'm not sure I'll ever go back to making porcelain dolls.  The molds sit in a box under my bed and the kiln is in the garage.  I'm not sure I'll ever crochet the fine thread doilies again.  But I love knitting sweaters and socks and mittens, dressing my dolls, doing the odd painting project, counted cross-stitch, and both hand and machine sewing.  I'd like to work on my drawing if I get time or keep a nature journal.  The best part of all my hobbies is that I've managed to pass on the doing of them to my daughter and I am continually amazed at how her creative life is developing.  It is all just so much fun.

~Jane

On My Soapbox

My wonderful, 80-year-old, mother passed away this spring.  I loved her so much and we had so much fun together over the years.  But she left a house stuffed with possessions that I am now having to deal with.  I don't even know what to do with most of it.  Boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff.  Stuff she had collected with hobbies and interests in mind, and stuff she had purchased with an eye to reselling.  She had a large inventory of things that had been in her antiques business. We had a huge garage sale a couple weeks ago and hardly made a dent even though we sold things very cheaply just because we knew it had to go.  It is so depressing and very overwhelming.  Once in a while anger flares at the situation I've been put into.  While I would like to just take time to grieve for her and remember all the happy times, instead I find myself trying to deal with all the stuff.  The whole situation has really made me re-evaluate the amount of possessions in my own home.  Yes, I am bringing home some things from my mom's house, but I am also getting rid of some of our clutter.  As I have more time - after dealing with her house - I'm going to seriously organize and clean out my own home.  I have promised my daughter I will not leave the same kind of mess for her to deal with. 

As much as I want to clean out my mother's house and get rid of the stuff, I am appalled by the number of women who come up to me at a garage sale with an armload of things and make comments like, "My husband is going to kill me, I already have a houseful of this stuff, don't know why I'm buying more?", or "I'll have to wait until my husband goes to bed to sneak this stuff in."  After hearing these comments from people at the garage sale, and incidentally, from people on all the list serves I'm on, from knitters to quilters to doll collectors and costumers, I really wonder about why we all feel we need so much of everything.  We need to think about how big our stashes are, why we buy so much, and how much we are realistically going to accomplish in the rest of our lifetimes.  If you have such a large stash you have to sneak it in, you probably shouldn't be buying more. 

My mother's stash finally grew to the point where family and friends couldn't visit because there wasn't enough room unless the weather was nice enough to be outside.  It was a huge source of contention between my parents at the end.  We couldn't bring either of my parents home for hospice care because there wasn't any room.  She got to the point where she was spending all her available free time trying to liquidate it instead of doing things with family.  She found out how much of a burden acquiring more than you can ever use is.  I don't want to make the same mistake she did, I want to learn from it.

Okay, off my soapbox now.  I have to get to bed early so we can do another garage sale tomorrow. 

~Jane