So Monday (April 21) was my birthday. I’m 29. And holding. Anyway, I was working on a different project and mentioned it to my partner in crime, Suzy. Today she sent me the most gorgeous doll she’s made yet, based upon my other project:

I was so delighted I squealed like the fangrrrl that I am.

So in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m going to chart it. No, I’m not going to offer it for sale. This one’s for me, but I will post WIP progress pictures.

Thank you, Suzy!

I’m not a collector. At least, not in the usual sense. I collect three things. One I limit because it was at the “right” size for me (and it’s got a total of 6 big things, which are all being actively used in my household; and 6 very small things, which are put away because I have small children and the small things are tchotchkes anyway). One is infinitesimally small and I can fit into it as much crap as I want. One fits tidily in a space that I have dedicated to it and also, it’s tax deductible.

Otherwise, I like space, freedom to move, less stuff, and decluttering. Decluttering is my life. I don’t think I’ll be truly satisfied until this house is empty and we’re sitting on mats and sleeping on low platforms. The older I get the more I’m attracted to that clean 1960s postmodern look.

Of course, this is a pipe dream. My kids have toys and outgrown clothes. Ick. I can’t wait until they outgrow all this crap and I can get rid of it to the first person who might give a hint of a whiff of a suggestion that they want it all. I have even discovered that my almost-5-year-old daughter’s behavior improves dramatically when her environment is uncluttered. She has a bed in her room. That’s about it.

My goal when I die is that I have very little of STUFF for my children to dispose of.

I’m going to tell you a story that is true. It happened in 1998 or 1999. I did someone wrong, and in trying to put it aright, I am now going to do something fairly daring.

Begin story:

In 1998 or thereabouts, I met a fantasy artist at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. I was immediately taken with her art and asked her if she wanted to be “charted” for counted cross stitch, and I explained what that was. She said yes and gave me a print as prepayment (which is its own irony). I went home and promptly began to work on one of her pieces. However, the software I had at the time and my lack of skill/training to make a good chart made it nearly impossible.

I must have charted and re-charted that piece 20 times. I started stitching it 4 or 5 times and finally gave up in frustration because I could not create a good combination of “fun to stitch” and quality representation of her artwork. I emailed her and told her of this brick wall I had run into, but for whatever reason, I never heard back from her.

I have always felt that I was not as honorable as I could have been in following up with her and making sure that she understood where I was with it. All these years, the partially stitched canvases sat folded in my cabinet, reminding me of my inability to accomplish this task, and alas, I no longer have the print. This has always been a blemish on my conscience.

Two years ago, I finally realized a dream of mine that began with my asking her if she wanted to be charted. I bought good software and learned how to use it. I learned that I was supposed to pay the artist for the right to chart the art and have done so faithfully. I also charted my own designs and am selling them (as you all know).

Charting previously existing artwork is a very difficult, time-consuming, and painstaking task which I didn’t understand in 1998. I grossly underestimated the time and effort it would take. It isn’t as simple as running the art through the program. It requires making the chart fun to stitch and keeping the integrity of the artwork intact. Now that I know better, I spend hundreds of hours refining a chart before I even begin to stitch and then I (or another skilled stitcher) spend thousands of hours stitching to further refine (usually quite drastically) the final work and the chart.

So, with a few things under my belt, I felt emboldened to tackle this piece of hers again after so many years. I had kept the graphic file in the expectation I would return to it after I had learned what I needed to know, and I took an entirely different approach than I had before.

The art? Faery Ring.

The artist? Nene Thomas

The appropriate attribution and copyright link? Here. Scroll Down.

The finished piece? Voila:

Cheryl Flanders did the magnificent and painstaking work of stitching this piece.
Lori Armold of Enchanted Fabrics hand dyed the fabric it was stitched upon.

I hope that Ms. Thomas can forgive me for not following through on my end of our bargain.

Susanne Ohlsson did the art.

I did the chart.

She’ll be officially released for sale July 4. We both hope you like her as much as we do.

I spent today mending my children’s (and my) toys. The monkey was pooping Fiberfil. The wolf-whistling lovebug (mine) had been laundered and needed to be re-stuffed and wolf-whistling mechanism put back in place. The talking teddy bear was out of batteries, as was the Glowworm. They all needed stuffing and sewing repair in one form or another. In gauging how much Fiberfil to put back in these creatures, it got me to thinking about a person I know who had made bears for some members of my family and how she stuffed them.

I prefer my animals to be a little bit loosey goosey¹. They’re so much more cuddly, comforting, and welcoming that way. I tend to not care so much for the bears that are stuffed solid as a rock, which scream, “Lookie–no touchie!”

This person I know stuffs dolls and bears so tight and solid that there is absolutely no give; thus, they’re not for touching or playing with. They’re for decoration². And that pretty much sums up her personality: No cuddling. No comfort. No give. No warmth.

I wonder what my dolls would say about me?

¹Caveat: I don’t much care for stuffed animals at all, and have just spent the last month paring my children’s stuffed toys down to an acceptable two or three each. It’s just too much, really, and I don’t think any child should have that much.

²Yeah, I don’t like knickknacks, either, especially ones that don’t have a strong personal meaning or emotional attachment.

If there was ever an organization I’d be more than willing to donate my time to if I didn’t have small children, it’d be this one. (It wouldn’t be the first time I’d gotten a job, paying or not, for the express purpose of learning some skill I wanted to learn.)

In any case, today I have found out two very important pieces of information:

1. Where to take my old crappy paint (i.e., NOT to HfH)
2. That Habitat for Humanity takes reasonably nice construction materials donations and they pick your stuff up

We moved into this house and the owner had left the paint and labeled it as to which room it belonged to, which was really nice, but it was 14-1/2 years old. There’s the ceramic tile they left, which I am not going to use; HfH says they don’t want outdated tile, but it’s so old it’s come back IN style now. There’re carpet remnants, too, of which I am not thrilled. (And even if I were, I daren’t do anything more than shampoo the carpets before my small wrecking crew has gone–preferably far away–to college.) And that’s not even to mention the vanity and shower door I pulled out of the bathroom.

Re bathroom: Demolition is going slowly. I got a Craftsman tool chest for, well, no particular holiday at all but I tell everybody it’s my Mother’s Day present. So I’ve been doing my next-to-favorite thing in the whole world: organizing and getting rid of crap. (I’ll let you figure out what my favorite thing in the whole world is because this is a family blog.) I find I really can’t work very well with an unorganized space biting at my heels. It screws up my Zen.

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