Pupae

While the 3rd (and currently final) batch of thrift store dollies are drying and their hair conditioning, I started on the next project: felt pupae.

As I'm sewing these pieces, I remembered hemming pants when I was young - like 10-years-old-young, or maybe even younger than that. There was this commercial tailor in the building my grandmother and I were living, and she'd get pants from them to hem. I remember sitting near the floor with my grandmother and great aunt, and listening to their conversations while we sewed. Whatever money I earned was mine to keep, I recall. Even before the fashion dept. I knew how to make patterns and sew, because those were simply skills a girl should have.

Having to work for pocket money stopped when my mom came back from Paris, and I started getting allowances instead. Then, my free time got filled with lessons and extra-curricular studies. In contrast, when my grandmother's teacher told my great-grandfather she, too, would make a good teacher one day, he immediately withdrew her from school saying girls didn't need to know so much.

It's interesting, looking back, how values change as societies evolve, and what girls/women are supposed to do, and what skills are valued, etc... I wish I remembered all the stuff my grandmother and great aunt talked about.

Anyway, still 37 of these to go. Oh, goodie!