The Mending Game

Pants waiting to have patches ironed on.

Today I'm working on repairing lots of different things. The kids' mending has really been piling up. My daughter went through a phase last winter where she ripped her clothes basically every time she wore them. She even managed to tear her gorgeous Scandinavian Hartstrings $80 sweater dress at church! And this was Lutheran church, too, not some Holy Roller, Bible Beating type of service. Luckily I got the dress marked way down, but still!

I sew the hole with zig-zag stitching, then hide the repair with a patch.

One of the pairs of pants I'm mending today came from a friend already torn, but the others are all her. Even her brand-new, worn-once birthday black sparkle leggings are torn. I loved the Harajuku star maxi skirt when I purchased it, but she steps on the hem and tears this ruffle out every time she puts it on. A few days ago I had to sew my teen's fitted sheet up because he'd ripped out one whole corner. It never ends!

The Harajuku skirt with a repeatedly-torn ruffle.

In the case of the pants with the torn-out knees, I'm sewing the holes shut with zig-zag stitching and ironing on patches over them. Luckily these DIY Bling patches are really in right now, so it's easy to find a match for very little money. I got my daughter some iron-on rhinestones so she can add extra sparkle. I hope it will encourage her to be a bit more careful with her clothing.

Brand new leggings, worn once, with the seam already ripped.

I also started on the new box of dolls today. There are a few in there that hardly need any work before I can sell them. There is a stunning 1930s composition bride with the Madame Alexander Wendy Ann face. I don't think she is a Madame, because although she does use the same face mold and has the side-glancing eyes, her paint is slightly different and her clothes are pinned to her body, which Madame Alexander usually didn't do as far as I know. The original owner thinks she may be a Junel, so I assume that's true. Since companies shared their molds back in the day, it can be virtually impossible to identify an unmarked doll.

Wendy Ann and Nancy Ann get some air.

Wendy Ann is all-original and nearly perfect, amazing for an octogenarian! One shoe is starting to disintegrate, and her satin wedding gown, lovely 30's style, had some marks and pinholes. I gently cleaned the stains with carpet and upholstery spot cleaner and set her in the sun to bleach them further. Wendy's main flaw is a musty odor, like a basement or attic, where I assume she's been residing for a few decades. The sunlight and fresh air should remove it posthaste.

Then there is a near mint Nancy Ann Storybook bisque doll in the lot. I have to do some research to see if I can identify this little lady. She wears a darling black houndstooth dress trimmed in green and a green felt hat, still crispy and new-feeling. She also had a bit of an odor from storage, so I put her in the sun as well.

When I get done with the mending there's the usual laundry mountain to work through. And I have to bake three dozen cookies for the Fall Festival (Halloween party) at pre-school tomorrow. And produce a Merida costume from Brave, because the Disney Store version costs $70. And clean, because my four-year-old is complaining about the house being so dirty since I've been sick.

Oh, you ask, is that the same four-year-old who spilled blue paint all over the bathroom floor and rug immediately after I cleaned them last week? The one who cut up minuscule slivers of paper and left them all over the floor? The one who knocked over his milk and watched it pour off the table while he just sat there so I had to mop the floor yesterday morning before school and didn't get to eat breakfast? Why yes, it is he, the very same.

Oh, Wendy Ann faced bride doll, are you sure you want to go through with this? Aren't you a little young and delicate for this hard labor?

Pretty soon, despite all this work, I'm going to take a nap. I'm better than I was, well enough to walk very slowly on my walk and down to the lake, but still easily tired and still with this constant headache. On my way to the lake today I encountered a snake on the sidewalk. This type of snake is harmless; I dug one up when we were putting in the garden last spring and looked it up to make sure, but now I no longer remember the name (another casualty of motherhood, Wendy Ann, just so you know!). Anyway, when the snake saw me coming he stuck his head under a leaf and lay very still, just as if he were pretending to be a fallen branch with a leaf still attached. I got a kick out of it.

A haze of humidity over the lake.

Last week we had heavy frost, so I had to bring all my unripe tomatoes in. We had twenty-two good sized ones still one the vine, so our windowsills are all taken up by tomatoes. You can see them in the background of my Breakfast Nook post if you look closely. Now, however, it got warm and humid again. I could see the haze of humidity over the lake yesterday morning. I think this is a pretty scene, perhaps worthy of the new dining room painting I'm thinking about.

I guess I'm going to have to clean my office as well. Jerry has been threatening to "organize" it for me. If he does so I won't be able to find anything. You know, it's been proven in several studies that people with messy work spaces are more creative. Now, though, my daughter is starting on me. When I was shipping stuff to Russia this morning at 6AM she came in and offered to help me clean it. So, maybe it is a bit overly messy!

Finally, yesterday I proofed my recent blog entries again because I found so many errors reading over my eBay listings. Every single one had flaws, so I worked on fixing those last night. Now I'm going to have to go way back and read over everything because it drives me crazy. No matter how much I proof-read, always the typos! I'm going to have to turn my writing degree back in!

The Wendy Ann and Nancy Ann dolls shown in this post should be available in my store shortly, so please do check: http://stores.ebay.com/atelier-mandaline.