Almost a year later - sorry!

UPDATE:  My apologies to my blog followers for the time between posts.  In this past year I have come to feel that my address is c/o my local hospital rather than my own home.  To sum it up, my knees are shot and I am not a candidate for knee replacement surgery because of other health issues.  The most recent admission was scary.  For two days my legs would not allow me to stand up so I spent a weekend in my recliner.  When I developed a high temperature and skin mottling, it was time to call the doctor on call who sent the ambulance.  In the ER the doctors really wanted to find a brain or spinal cord process as the source of the problem but deep in my heart I knew it was my knees and begged them to call my rheumatologist.  It took three days but they finally did call my rheumatologist and he tapped my knees (my right knee went down 2 inches in girth!) and instilled steroids.  I have to accept the fact that this is my life now, so it's a slow down, but not a stop.  I will not give in and if it means an assistive device to get around, then that is what will happen. 

SEWING: On a better note, in late summer I was given quite a gift - the task of turning a wedding gown into a boy's Christening outfit as well as a girl's Christening gown and a Christening coat.  I've been sewing since age 17 (at least 1000 years ago), so I thought I would not have any problems.  However, I had never dealt with "pick-ups" before or what was left when they were removed.  It took three weeks to take the gown apart and with each stitch removed, my heart sunk a little more.  When the pick-ups were released, I was left with 4 inch holes in the skirt fabric where each had been.  It was tricky, to say the least, to find enough solid fabric to cut the pieces needed.  The hem was another problem because it was a balloon hem and had dragged on the ground.  While there was a lot of fabric on the inside, the hemline was badly soiled.  A highly recommended dry cleaner would not touch the gown because of all the beading and sequins, so I had to work with what I had.  Fortunately, since I was cutting an infant pattern,  many of the pieces were small. 

I had started on the gown first but the baby was a beautiful little boy - so I put the gown aside and really got busy on the boy's romper.  The pattern was one piece but since the baby's parents are very tall,  I was afraid of "popping crotch" from diapers, etc. I made it as a two piece garment, adding two inches to the bottom edge of the shirt part, so it could be tucked in the pants.  The Mom liked it so much as it was, that she left the shirt extension out over the pants.  I never had a chance to try it on the baby, but it fit him perfectly.  Sadly, I did not get the coat done in time for the Christening.  The knee incident happened while I was working on it and once I got home, I got a wicked flu (I think we always bring something home from the hospital and it is not always as pleasant as a new baby).   I now have time to finish the gown and the coat for the next baby!  The holes in the skirt made it hard to match beading patterns but I could come close. Here are photos of the gown as I received it, and the resultant boy's outfit which took every inch of plain fabric on the gown. I will post the photos of the others when they are done.   The gown was exquisite and I hated cutting into it but doing so allowed me to create items that can be passed on through the family so that is good.  You cannot see it in the first or second photos but the entire bodice is covered with a very fine champagne colored mesh and  then beaded on top of that.  I was able to leave the bodice intact in case it can someday be used for a little girl's First Communion dress. 

I do have other sewing plans for the year - the get back to sewing for my reproduction and antique Bleuettes and Rosettes, and maybe for my Mary Hoyer dolls.  For the first time in three years, I have ordered another Bleuette and she is due to arrive shortly after my birthday in February.  I sew for these dolls by hand and find it so relaxing but I have not been able to find the type of vintage fabrics that I found while living in Maine.  Maybe in Philadelphia proper.  I also want to work on the great fabric stash in my bedroom that I swear multiplies in the dark!  I have been following  Lynn's wonderful quilting blog at  http://sewnwildoaks.blogspot.com/ and ordered her Madrigal pattern.  I have never used black in a quilt but I like the look of this one and somehow think navy or hunter green would not be as effective.  She is also working on it in yellows and greens now so I may have found a use for a stash of Folk Art Wedding fabrics which I purchased in Minnesota in 2000.  

TV:  A friend here at the apartment complex has gotten me started on Korean dramas.  Of course, the two shows are on at midnight and 12:35 AM here on the east coast, but I am completely hooked.  It started when I taped the shows for her while she was away last summer.  When she came over to watch them, of course I watched with her, and that was that.  I was hooked.  One is called "To Be With You" and the actress who plays the new mother-in-law  is such a good actress (unless she is this evil in real life) that I truly hate her character and mutter under my breath at her during all her evil actions - worse than JR Ewing!  The second show is called "Happiness in the Wind" and is should be winding up in a week or so.  I missed the beginning but the episodes can be seen online.  One of the ones I taped for her was "Smile Again, Donghae" but that ended and "To Be With You" took its place.  Now, normally when the TV is on, I am doing many other things - reading, cooking, reading e-mails, etc.  With these shows I cannot do that because they are all subtitled.  I am learning so much about Korean culture and it is so interesting.  I wish I could see the Jeju island they talk about as a honeymoon get-away.  In one of the episodes last night they were preparing for a holiday - Chuseok, which is a harvest festival, rather like our Thanksgiving.  Another thing I found interesting is family heierarchy.  The evil mother-in-law has two daughters-in-law, the second of which is older than the first.  However since she came into the family second, she is now of lesser status than the first, and they can no longer address each other by their given names, but by terms that mean older sister-in-law and second sister-in-law.  Very, very interesting.  If you have a DVR or Tivo, you might have fun watching them.  Of course I get up later now, staying up so late,  but it's like getting fun history lessons!

BOOKS:  I have done a lot of reading over the last year, most recently reading a book that I read many years ago.  If you are at all interested in the origins of antiseptic care in hospitals, or if you work in the medical field, you may find this book informative.  It is called "The Cry and the Covenant" by Morton Thompson and it is about the life of Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis who discovered something that could put an end to deaths from childbed fever.  He was mocked, ridiculed and basically martyred for his beliefs and findings.  It is a powerful book with a lot of Hungarian-Austrian politics of the time (which I glossed over for the medical parts) and it made my blood boil to think that doctors could be so narrow-minded at the time, while thousands of women were dying from the easily prevented childbed fever.   In a lighter reading vein, I have discovered David Rosenfelt who writes about a lawyer, Andy Carpenter, who has a golden retriever named Tara.  The author has begun a foundation for golden retrievers called "The Tara Foundation".  While I generally prefer medical mystery type books and authors like Robin Cook, Kathy Reichs, etc., these are not so heavily into law that I find them difficult.  Good reads and if there is a dog in it, even better!   I am lucky in that the Bookmobile comes here twice a month and the woman who is in charge of the mobile library does a great job of finding the books on my long lists.  She has even read a few of them.  If you are a Jan Karon fan, read her children's books, especially "Jeremy - The Tale of an Honest Bunny" and "Miss Fannie's Hat".   

I truly am sorry for the delay between postings and thank you for staying with me.  Life just got in my way.   Sadly, I have also recently learned that a dear friend has acute myelogenous leukemia and needs a stem cell transplant.  Friends, donating is not like it used to be with bone marrow donation which was quite painful for the donor.  Now, a donor is given something to increase stem cells and then a few days later, blood is drawn as for a transfusion, with the stem cells being filtered out and the donor's own blood being put back in.  Donors can be between the ages of 18-60 and no matter how healthy the donor may be, he or she comes off the list at age 61.  If you have resisted joining the national registry because of the fear of the harvesting procedure, it is easy now, so please consider joining it.  Doing so requires you to do nothing more than swab the inside of your cheek with the swab sent by the registry.  Sadly, I am too old at 64 to help my friend or anyone, in this way, but if you want to help someone in the future, you can find more information here:  http://ww5.bethedonor.org/ 

or here:  http://marrow.org/Home.aspx.  You really could save a life.  

 I promise it will not be another year before I post again.  Hope you are all well.  I have missed you.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on...

Recently I was telling a friend that despite the turmoil of the last eight years, I had not given up on dreams. She told me I must be strong and never stop dreaming. This dream seems almost impossible, but I will hold on to it a little while longer. I have long wanted to see Alaska, for a lot of reasons, but two in particular - 1) I knew that the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, who taught me all those years ago, once settled in Nome and on arrival were welcomed by the Sisters of Providence in Anchorage; 2) and, several years ago, while still doing medical transcription, one of my accounts was Providence Hospital in Anchorage. One of the staff physicians, a neurologist, had been educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and I loved the fact that she would expound on what she saw outside her window as she dictated, so the reports were often filled with accounts of moose sightings, and severe snow storms.

I was astounded by how different things seemed in Alaska, medically. Instead of people being driven to the hospital, it seemed that many went by boat, or were air-lifted. Also, the accidents were of a different type from those one finds in the suburbs of Philadelphia where fishing accidents seem rare, at least to the degree suffered by commercial fishermen. I was also saddened by the sheer number of people suffering severe depression from the extended darkness.

I guess we all experience episodes of extended darkness, even if not literally, times when there seems no way out of the dark, to find the light again. It is during these times that I am most grateful for my faith, which comforts me as little else can during troubling times. After faith come my friends, some of which I have known since very early grade school years, and some who are much newer in my life, but just as precious. All are beacons of light when the path is locked in darkness.

It is one of these newer but still cherished friends who encouraged me to dream a few weeks back. Several months ago I received notification about a cruise to Alaska, which will feature workshops for a sweet doll, Bleuette, and the rest of her family. Bleuette was offered in France, from 1905 to 1960. She started out being offered as a premium for subscriptions to a weekly magazine for little girls, La Semaine de Suzette. Before the first issue was ever sent, they ran out of the initial 20,000 dolls and needed to find more, quickly. I won’t delve into the many molds used for Bleuette and her various looks, at least not at this time, but since learning of her a few years ago, she has lodged firmly in my heart, in a place previously held solely by the Mary Hoyer dolls of my youth. I see many similarities in these dolls in that each had not only commercial clothing available, but also patterns for many more items, thus allowing little girls to learn important techniques that would help them when they established their our homes. Someday I hope to say that I have made all 1000+ patterns for Bleuette (another dream), but for now, I shall concentrate on being able to take the cruise to Alaska.

At this moment, it is possible that this dream might come true. It will require a lot of discipline - sewing when maybe I just don’t feel like it - but I know that I have the ability to make this happen, and with good friends supporting me in my dreams, they are more likely to become reality.

What do you do with a wedding gown from a failed marriage? Despite the outcome, there seems something awful in discarding it. The satin is too heavy to be used for anything else, and it lay unprotected for so many years, that I doubt it could ever be worn again, should a granddaughter ever desire so simple a style.

The photo above holds many treasures and remnants of dreams. The Madame Alexander doll is wearing the christening gown I made for my first child, a daughter, back in 1968. It is from a beautiful McCalls’ pattern and was supposed to be embroidered down the front with a tree of life design. Back in 1968 I was not doing embroidery, so instead, I cut the lace corners from my wedding hanky, and appliqued them onto the center panel of the gown. Directly opposite on the left is part of the bodice and sleeve of the above-mentioned wedding gown. The little bear was a gift from a son, and is a favorite. Her name is Guinevere. The scissors are treasured for close work. Pearls are essential to me, even more so than diamonds. The entwined hearts in two shades of purple are shown on one of the hankies I made for the girls in my son and daughter-in-law’s wedding party. What a joy an embroidery machine is but I do love hand embroidery. The tiny bits of pink by the tip of the scissors are earrings in the shape of roses. I believe the company which made them was 1928 or something to that effect. I also have a pair with smaller roses, and pearl drops below the roses. The doll in the center is a Mary Hoyer. All my childhood ones were lost in a hurricane. This is my one and only at present. The roses by the bear’s feet are in a small urn, and are just decoration. The quilt, while not one of my own, is still cherished. I love the colors and the pearls and embroidery on it.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on...

Recently I was telling a friend that despite the turmoil of the last eight years, I had not given up on dreams. She told me I must be strong and never stop dreaming. This dream seems almost impossible, but I will hold on to it a little while longer. I have long wanted to see Alaska, for a lot of reasons, but two in particular - 1) I knew that the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, who taught me all those years ago, once settled in Nome and on arrival were welcomed by the Sisters of Providence in Anchorage; 2) and, several years ago, while still doing medical transcription, one of my accounts was Providence Hospital in Anchorage. One of the staff physicians, a neurologist, had been educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and I loved the fact that she would expound on what she saw outside her window as she dictated, so the reports were often filled with accounts of moose sightings, and severe snow storms.

I was astounded by how different things seemed in Alaska, medically. Instead of people being driven to the hospital, it seemed that many went by boat, or were air-lifted. Also, the accidents were of a different type from those one finds in the suburbs of Philadelphia where fishing accidents seem rare, at least to the degree suffered by commercial fishermen. I was also saddened by the sheer number of people suffering severe depression from the extended darkness.

I guess we all experience episodes of extended darkness, even if not literally, times when there seems no way out of the dark, to find the light again. It is during these times that I am most grateful for my faith, which comforts me as little else can during troubling times. After faith come my friends, some of which I have known since very early grade school years, and some who are much newer in my life, but just as precious. All are beacons of light when the path is locked in darkness.

It is one of these newer but still cherished friends who encouraged me to dream a few weeks back. Several months ago I received notification about a cruise to Alaska, which will feature workshops for a sweet doll, Bleuette, and the rest of her family. Bleuette was offered in France, from 1905 to 1960. She started out being offered as a premium for subscriptions to a weekly magazine for little girls, La Semaine de Suzette. Before the first issue was ever sent, they ran out of the initial 20,000 dolls and needed to find more, quickly. I won’t delve into the many molds used for Bleuette and her various looks, at least not at this time, but since learning of her a few years ago, she has lodged firmly in my heart, in a place previously held solely by the Mary Hoyer dolls of my youth. I see many similarities in these dolls in that each had not only commercial clothing available, but also patterns for many more items, thus allowing little girls to learn important techniques that would help them when they established their our homes. Someday I hope to say that I have made all 1000+ patterns for Bleuette (another dream), but for now, I shall concentrate on being able to take the cruise to Alaska.

At this moment, it is possible that this dream might come true. It will require a lot of discipline - sewing when maybe I just don’t feel like it - but I know that I have the ability to make this happen, and with good friends supporting me in my dreams, they are more likely to become reality.

What do you do with a wedding gown from a failed marriage? Despite the outcome, there seems something awful in discarding it. The satin is too heavy to be used for anything else, and it lay unprotected for so many years, that I doubt it could ever be worn again, should a granddaughter ever desire so simple a style.

The photo above holds many treasures and remnants of dreams. The Madame Alexander doll is wearing the christening gown I made for my first child, a daughter, back in 1968. It is from a beautiful McCalls’ pattern and was supposed to be embroidered down the front with a tree of life design. Back in 1968 I was not doing embroidery, so instead, I cut the lace corners from my wedding hanky, and appliqued them onto the center panel of the gown. Directly opposite on the left is part of the bodice and sleeve of the above-mentioned wedding gown. The little bear was a gift from a son, and is a favorite. Her name is Guinevere. The scissors are treasured for close work. Pearls are essential to me, even more so than diamonds. The entwined hearts in two shades of purple are shown on one of the hankies I made for the girls in my son and daughter-in-law’s wedding party. What a joy an embroidery machine is but I do love hand embroidery. The tiny bits of pink by the tip of the scissors are earrings in the shape of roses. I believe the company which made them was 1928 or something to that effect. I also have a pair with smaller roses, and pearl drops below the roses. The doll in the center is a Mary Hoyer. All my childhood ones were lost in a hurricane. This is my one and only at present. The roses by the bear’s feet are in a small urn, and are just decoration. The quilt, while not one of my own, is still cherished. I love the colors and the pearls and embroidery on it.