FORGOTTEN MEMORIES

My heart was pounding as I walked into my craft room. I looked at the tiny outfits that were left over from five years ago. How I enjoyed sewing the different types of clothing; everything from bathing suits to ball gowns. For five years my sewing machine, fabric, trims and ribbons had laid dormant. My dolls, finding most of them at outlets like Salvation Army, 2nd hand stores, and other Missions were laying in the totes where they had been packed away. How we used to enjoy so much, dressing them in their new outfits, and giving them new hair styles. Great care was taken to match their shoes to the clothing, that I sewed with so much patience and pride.

How on that one day could my life be changed forever!

I took the first doll out, fingering her hair, and the next one, and than the next one, until all 29 of them were spread out, waiting to go to the beauty parlour. Because I never had a daughter, and wanted one so badly I had as an adult always been drawn to dolls. Funny, when growing up with two older brothers, I was a tomboy, never interested in girl’s things, only wagons, balls, playing cowboys, etc. Being poor as church mice growing up, I even wore my brother’s hand-me-downs. Only had one dress, which was for Sunday School and Church.  

I dug through my totes looking for outfits I had started and were not finished. I found lace, buttons, embellishments in other totes while looking. Usually everything would have been labeled, but when things were packed up after that day, nothing was labelled. It was just packed up to get it out of site. I couldn’t bear to even walk into the room. The door had actually remained closed for the last five years.  

Pausing while going through the doll items, I almost expected her to bounce through the door, all excited to help in the doll “beauty parlour“ as she called it. She had taken a corner of the room and had decorated it like a hair salon. We even had a chair to sit the dolls in. Her laughter as we experimented with different hair styles sounded so real to me now. How she loved choosing the outfits to dress the dolls in, as I finished sewing each item. Picking out the footwear, and the jewellery seemed to give her much delight. She would give me her opinions on what trim, lace or other embellishments would look good on each outfit as I was sewing them. 

Writing up the descriptions for each completed outfit to advertise to sell on our Facebook page gave her a sense of great accomplishment. Everything we sold I gave her half of the money. She was saving to buy her first car. All kinds of memories came flooding into my head. My heart was breaking all over again. 

I never thought I would finally get my girl, only to lose her. My granddaughter was everything to me. We cooked, cleaned, went for drives together. But the dolls became our most prized possessions. She was learning to sew, already had a knack for choosing fabric to go with a certain pattern. How she loved to pin the patterns on the fabric and cut them out for me. One day taking pictures of the dolls dressed in their finery, she told me this was her favourite part. Back to reality; I put down what I had in my hand and left the room. I did not close the the door....

Next morning I walked back in and started where I had left off the day before. I sorted the whole day, labelling each smaller shoebox totes, and rearranging the stuff left on the shelves. By the end of the day I was ready to start sewing. I had found the outfits she had previously cut out, and decided to make them first. 

Walking into my craft room the next day, I seemed to feel my spirits lifted. For the first time in five years, I really wanted to sew. Choosing a dress I decided to make, brought back the memory of how she would have this all done for me. She would take the outfit that she had cut out, fold it, pick out the thread, lace or whatever trim or buttons she would like to see on the finished product and put it all in a baggie. If there was more than one, cut from the same fabric, she would put it into another bag with the embellishments she chose and taking a bigger bag would put the smaller bags in it with the thread that was the same colour.

I had another sewing machine and she would fill the bobbins with the thread. That way when I went to sew each item,  the bobbin was filled, coordinated thread was with it and I was all set to go.

I decided to make a cup of tea, which brought back the memory of her bringing me tea in my favourite mug. We had many tea parties when she was little, drinking out of my mother’s real China cups with saucers, and of course served with the fancy cookies we made together especially for our afternoon tea. 

Finishing my tea I picked up the dress, popped the bobbin in and threaded the machine. It felt so good to be sewing again. I never realized how much I missed it. For two hours I sewed, my mind busy and thinking about different things.  

My sewing room overlooked my garden out back. I stopped and stared..... Good grief! What had happened out there? I could not believe what I was seeing! It looked like a gardener hadn’t touched it for years..I stopped sewing and could hear my granddaughter saying, “ Nanny, you really need to weed your flowers!” Often I would lose myself in my sewing room, and my poor flower garden would be neglected, only to be reminded by her that there were other things in my life besides sewing.  

I turned back to my sewing, and having almost finished four dresses, I began to pin on the different trims she had picked for each item she had cut out. Within the hour I had four of them completely finished. Getting out the small ironing board, I proceeded to press them and put them on the small hangars and hung them on a rack sized for the small outfits.

They were perfect, and I put the footwear she had picked out, underneath each item. 

Next I went to my fabric closet, and picking out patterns, matched them up with the fabric I liked. This time I chose capris and tops, and actually enjoyed choosing coordinating mix and match fabrics. My granddaughter loved doing this, however sometimes she went a little wild with what she picked out. I used to try to tell her I didn’t think they would go together, but she would tell me, this was  the new fashion. Unbelievably everything she chose seemed to bethe first to sell.  

All of a sudden, I remembered how we would go shopping for dolls, bring them home, make them look almost brand new. Making boxes for them was at first a challenge, but eventually we mastered the art. Choosing patterns and fabric we would put together a wardrobe. This included a nightie or pj’s, a short dress, a pair of capris, a pair of blue jeans with two different tops that could be matched with both the capris and jeans, and her favourite, a ball gown type of dress. We gave these dolls with wardrobes away to charities for raffles or to lol little girls whom we knew would want one for Christmas.

Sometimes we would make the shoes to match the outfits, especially the gowns. She would glue on the shiny embellishments with great care. The shoes were gorgeous...

and she made me promise we would one day make the shoes for her wedding.......

With this thought I had to get out of my craft room.  

We had planned to do so much together, make her wedding dress and both of us would sew by hand the pearls and other trim she would pick out. She already knew what her bouquet would look like. We would use both real and silk flowers, and of course colour coordinated with her dress.  

I walked out the back door staring at my bedraggled garden. How on earth did I ever let it get into such a mess. It would be too much for me to do by myself, definitely would have to hire someone to get it back to where it was before........

Turning, I slowly walked back into my sewing room. Now where was I? Oh right, and taking out the fabric for my granddaughter‘s wedding dress, reached for the pattern she had chosen. When I turned around I saw a reflection of her walking in my garden. I sat down and as tears started to fall, I realized I never would make her that dress. She was no longer here on earth. I wondered, is she dancing in Heaven with her wedding shoes on we had finished that day she had her accident? She was on her way with them to show her mom, when a car sideswiped her car and she went off the road. They found her with the shoes clutched in her arms.  

I got up from the chair, walked out of my craft room, and closed the door........and walked out to the garden where my granddaughter was waiting for me.  

The End