Skip to main content

Flashback Friday


Here is a blast from the past .... While cleaning up the spare bedroom, I found a photo of  some of the first dolls I made - cloth dolls  from 1980-1981. Dating them has been fairly easy  from the photo below.  I am sure the location is Bombala ( heavy blue curtains)  and my daughter, pictured below with the dolls  had lost her front teeth. ( Naomi was born in February, 1975)
The doll on the left was from a Simplicity pattern, the next one is an attempt at a sock doll, and the other two were made from a Style pattern. In those days, Bombala was  a small, fairly isolated town (no sewing shops) and there was no internet  or online shopping, so the patterns were mail ordered, or perhaps I had brought them with me from Tenterfield where I would have ordered them from the local haberdashery shop. I do remember at least making a few of the large "Simplicity " doll while living in Tenterfield, and I am sure my niece, Melanie owned one of those.


Cleaning up is not only good for our living environment, but it's good for the spirit. Amazing -  this morning, I actually found the pattern for the boy and girl dolls - all still in tact - Style pattern #2011. I wonder if it is still available today, and how much it costs. When I bought it, it was $1.80 ( or only $1.50 in New Zealand!)  


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

#SeptTextileLove26 Day 7

  #SeptTextileLove #STL26Day7 ‘Historical’ ... Family history is often a source of inspiration and information for my work. This stitched work featuring a photo of my great grandmother also acts as a commentary on the Chinese historical practice of foot binding, hence the inclusion of an x ray photograph of a female bound foot. It looks painful and undoubtedly was , but it was considered 'beautiful". What contemporary body shaping practices do we still engage in for the sake of ‘beauty’? Historical body shaping practices included tight-lacing corsets, foot binding, and neck elongation , all used to mould the human form into culturally defined ideals of beauty. (AI overview) Foot Binding in China Starting from Song elites and eventually popularized and ended in the Qing dynasty, foot binding was seen as an idolized representation of women's petite beauty, and the practice was referred to as "三寸金莲" , 'three-inch golden lotus' Wikipedia . This practice...
Post a Comment
Read more

#SeptTextileLove26 Day8

    SeptTextileLove #stl26day8 ‘Inspiring Exhibition’ … earlier this year , the Wednesday Makers Group at Timeless Textiles ( Newcastle, Australia) celebrated International Women’s Day with their exhibition, “Inspiring Women in Stitch’ - congratulations - inspiring women honouring inspiring women .   link to video   
Post a Comment
Read more

#SeptTextileLove26 Day 4

 #septtextilelove  #stl26day4  … Story-telling … making ‘art dolls’ gives wonderful opportunities to tell stories … This matriarch’s story  is intertwined with the cicadas which form  part of the soft sculpture  and emphasises what appears to be a contradiction about nurturing life and inevitable death... Cicadas spend years underground as nymphs feeding on root sap, emerging en masse as winged adults for a few days, perhaps a week, to mate and lay eggs in tree branches, then die, leaving the eggs to hatch into new nymphs that burrow underground to restart the cycle.  The dormant underground phase of the cicada’s life can be from 2-17 years! In my interpretation, this forest matriarch offers a safe place for cicadas to lay eggs, only to cause their own demise … but the continuing life cycle is ensured. 
Post a Comment
Read more