Sonshine #1 and I are in Dallas and we stopped by the most amazing art gallery.

My favorite piece was by Liz Whitney Quisgard . . . Lots of dots and beautiful.

Liz Whitney Quisgard

Me n Christopher n CoraMaezy are headed to Dallas. Why? Because Dallas is home to our nearest Daiso. Yep. Nine and one half hours to the nearest Japanese “dollar” store. CoraMaezy is hoping the

y’ve got some Dolly sized accessories. I’m hoping to get new strainers for my sinks.

Love this old photograph.

I should should should be working on my thesis project today and I was. Really. I swear. Then the doorbell rings and the most wonderful distraction arrived. I can’t believe the woman actually delivered to my door a packet of the most lovely old doll clothes. Beautifully made. Wonderful fabrics. Perfect for CoraMaezy.

Working on doll clothes . . .

I got a new Dolly. Her name is Bex. At least for now. 🙂

Just want to share pics of my babies on their graduation days. Christopher graduated from Southwest in 2012, Kate graduated from Southeast in 2016, a year early! So much for our plan to not have two kids in college at the same time.

Making a jenwrenne https://jenwrenne.wordpress.com pattern for an Edwardian dress for my Frankie doll. Frankie is Sam from A Girl For All Time with a new wig. She reminds me of my Mom.

Here’s the finished dress:

My sweet Momma:

The pattern: https://www.etsy.com/listing/602390860/edwardian-garden-party-sewing-pattern

Life is full of challenges. Recently I was reading a little book called The Year of Miss Agnes” and this line jumped out at me: “It’s better to kick some instead of just sinking.” And that’s kind of what this blog is to be about: my efforts in kicking some, rather than sinking.

I’m inviting you to join me mid-stride; the past few months have been tough. I am unfocused and unemployed and searching for direction. In theory, I’m working on finishing my final project for a Master’s Degree in Education, but I’m not sure what that is going to look like, and my materials are all messed up. I recently (actively) lost my job (more on that later) and when I lost access to my google drive for work, I lost access to many of the files that I needed. I can sputter on about google drive and the whole work gmail taking over personal accounts debacle later, (or never). Luckily when I was trying to get the drives ready to leave work (permanently) I foresaw the problem and had my home-grown tech support (that’s why we have kids, right?) make complete backups of both my home and work accounts on a thumb drive. So someday, that vague, once I get my act in gear someday, I will work on extracting said files. It’s a major source of frustration . . . hence something I’ve been avoiding. And I’ve got some pretty well-developed avoidance skills!

One of my favorites is sewing. Quilting or doll clothes. People-clothes-sewing is for the birds, if you ask me. Too many bumps and curves that change! But quilting, that tried and true hobby of taking big pieces of cloth, whacking it into smaller bits, then sewing it back together . . . now that’s not only relaxing, but you can make beautiful things that nobody is going to grow out of! Similarly, sewing clothes for dolls is a lot of fun. You can take your time and nobody’s going to grow overnight.

My favorite doll is Miss CoraMaezy. She’s actually a Clementine from A Girl For All Time, an English version of “American Girl” dolls. She’s slimmer and only 16 inches tall.

On Saturday, my husband gave me one of his old workshirts. My challenge to myself was to make as many pieces of dolly clothing out of it as possible. Using a pack of

vintage patterns for My Friend Mandy, I started with skirts. I cut out one for Mandy, two for CoraMaezy (one I will make into a jumper), and one for Saila. I knew to add to the pattern for CoraMaezy, but unfortunately the one for Saila turned out too small so I had to re-cut. I love this skirt pattern because it’s simple, but not plain. If I didn’t do the waistband and hem by hand, the whole skirt could be finished in less than twenty minutes. I happen to like doing hand work though–it helps me get my mellow on–so I’m looking forward to finishing them up.