Crochet to the Rescue

Thank goodness for crochet! My mother has dementia, and the very day Dad and I visited and reserved an apartment for her in an assisted living home, she fell and broke her hip. Fortunately, she had almost no pain, and her surgery to fix the break was successful. Dad and I didn't realize that we would be in the hospital all day yesterday, and I just happened to pick up my day pack which contained a book, crochet and some snacks. Dad was thrilled about the snacks and I was thrilled to have the crochet to keep my hands and mind busy as we waited. This is a picture of my little project: a partially finished doll blanket. It will be the right size for an 18" doll, but for now my tiny BJD, Pinky seems taken with it. I am sad that my mother is failing, but relieved that she is feeling good and is able to move around with assistance. She will spend about two weeks in a rehab facility and then be reevaluated to determine whether she should be placed in assisted living or a dementia unit. I will definitely keep a bag packed with crochet and/or knitting (and snacks for Dad) as we face an uncertain future. Thank you for reading this post. Peace.

August 3, 2018...A New Day

Wow! My last post was over four years ago. I considered giving the blog a new look, but I think for now that I'll stick with the old look. I still want it to be the same "place". I still love and collect dolls. What an understatement. I am swimming in dolls...maybe drowning in dolls. Thank goodness I came out of the dolly closet five years ago and have been openly enjoying and collecting them ever since. It's hard to know how to begin blogging again after such a long absence. Obviously, I can't start where I left off and introduce each new doll in order. Boring! I'm just going to start right here, right now. Today Spunk and I went to the town where I used to work and enjoyed a good old fashioned Chinese buffet. Delicious and nostalgic! I practically raised my family in Chinese buffets back in the 1990's. This place is dimly lit and the food is affordable and fresh and delicious. We stopped at a thrift store on the way home, and Spunk bought a necklace and a homemade unicorn plaque. (She has always loved horses and is now even more in love with unicorns. She and I even had a unicorn themed dinner on her birthday last month.)

I've been knitting quite a bit for my dolls over the last year. I love both knitting and crochet, but find the rhythm of knitting especially soothing. Here are a few of my girls in their knitted clothes. From left to right: Gotz Happy Kidz Clara (Edwina), Gotz Precious Day Jessica (Jesse), and an Asian Gotz Hanna (no name yet). The patterns are all on Ravelry. They are by a designer called GrandmaKnits or Janice Helge. I find her patterns to be very well written and easy to knit up. The grey dress and the red print dress are from her Hannah Loves Cables pattern and the blue and white dress is from Katie's New Dress pattern.

I realize this post is a bit lack luster, but I just want to begin the posting process, so I think I'll go ahead and publish it. I would like to show more dolls, but it took me nearly half an hour to comb out these three dollys' hair. I'm not sure I should call myself an adult doll collector. Their hair couldn't have been worse if they had been in the bottom of a toy box! Thanks for reading this.