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

Just When I Thought Things were Improving

Have you ever gotten into one of those periods of life where illness just seems to follow you around?  I started out a couple weeks ago with a cold, which has turned into a lingering cough.  Then I've been trying to be good and get my blood sugar levels down so I've been doing a little walking and exercising.  Well, trying to walk outside just aggravates my lungs and asthma with the cold air.  Then I decided to try just a few exercises Tuesday on our Total Gym, but my knees today are so bad that I gimped all around work.  They are pretty painful and pain relievers don't help.  The cold virus just seems to hang on and on.  I went to my mom's house last night to sort through stuff and I don't know if it was the dust or what, but I coughed and coughed and coughed until my daughter was freaked out.  Then when I got home I threw up my nice taco salad I'd purchased and eaten before working on the house and realized I was running a fever and chilled.  Food poisoning?  Who knows.  All I know is I want to get over it.  I've got things to do that don't include coming home from work and falling asleep for two hours on the couch.

~Jane

Life Unraveled

My mother passed away this spring after a seven-month battle with colon cancer.  Spending hours in hospital waiting rooms gave me lots of time to think about her life and my life and where it's at.  Don't get me wrong - I've had it pretty good up to this point.  I had good parents and a nice childhood.  I have a wonderful husband, daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.  I love my job.  I have friends.  But there are aspects of my life that just kind of happened and I've been wondering why I tolerate them.  I've decided that some of my life hasn't been lived very intentionally.  I've been content to go with the flow.

I love to knit.  I like to knit almost as much as I like to read.  I've been knitting long enough that I can knit almost anything I want to if I give it a little thought.  Recently I had the thought that life can be a lot like knitting.  Some times I jump into a project without a lot of thought.  I see a pattern I want to try or a neat yarn and there you go.  Sometimes I plan and plan, matching yarn to beads and buttons, comparing colors, and swatching to make sure everything is perfect.  Once in a while, despite my best intentions, a project just doesn't work out.  The size is wrong or the yarn is splitty or I didn't buy enough.  At that point, I start unraveling and begin again.

Lately I've been seeing there are some areas of my life that I want to start changing.  Like with my knitting, I'm going to start unraveling some of the less-than-perfect areas in my life and start remaking myself - one stitch at a time.