A Garden of Virtues

Ophelia was disappointed that it was raining again today, so I suggested we take our books and tea to the porch and enjoy the cool breeze. I gave Ophelia an old book to read from a library sale. I thought she might like it since she's interested in her namesake. Ophelia : In Search of Ophelia . That sounds interesting. Soon she was engrossed. Ophelia : I wonder what it would be like to be a Shakespearean actress. I'm sure one would have to be very learned. Ophelia : I suppose Hamlet 's Ophelia is a complicated character. It was not long till Ophelia forgot about the rain and felt quite content with book and tea. Ophelia, half-girl, half-woman, is the most elusive of my companions. Like her namesake, complicated . Looking back at my very first entries about my dolls makes me feel very wistful. She was going to be named Bess, after the heroine in Tennyson's "The Highwayman," and her husband, Hennessy, after a character of my creatio...

I have not been so interested in my work here as of late. I feel the need to do something new, to make something I've not seen before. This journal was created to explore my doll hobby and define the meaning of dolls for me. I have always been interested in the idea of Asian ball-jointed dolls as not merely objects or playthings, but as companions, as was intended in their invention several years ago. A companion, however, seems more like a partner to something else, a participant in what one actually does . I never seem to be able to make a journal dedicated to my dolls, no matter how much I may enjoy reading other people's. In addition, my enthusiasm for sewing and doll craft waxes and wanes, and at the moment it's waning. And making a journal dedicated to that seems pointless, when my energy for it is already low. My original intent was to make a companion journal, but I don't know how to go about it. I look at other people's all the time, but I don't know ...

Josette sleeping deeply. Josette stirs. "I must have been dreaming ." "I was wearing Grandmother's dress and carrying a bouquet of lilies of the valley. It felt so real." Josette goes to Grandmother's room in the old mansion. "I haven't entered this room in ages, but here is the dress, just as I remember it." "I used to come to this room and look at it when I was a girl. Grandmother once told me that I must wear this dress when I married." "It's gotten yellow with age, and it's a little dusty. I wonder if I will ever walk down the aisle in this dress." "Grandmother looked so beautiful in her wedding pictures. I loved to look at them and think of what she was like when she was a young bride." "The dress and veil are old-fashioned, but I have always loved old things." "'I promise to love and cherish you all the days of my life.'" "I'm being foolish, pretending this way. Pe...

These are the dolls I dream of buying when I get another job. Tom Francirek's Dolls for Paradise Galleries. Rosa. I haven't seen her yet on eBay. Andrea. On eBay Buy it Now for approximately $25 (including shipping) Tom Francirek's dolls have gotten rather scarce on eBay , and when I see them, they are at least as much as retail price. It kind of worries me that I won't be able to find them when the time comes.

Tonight I started making my Customhouse replica "Snow White" dress for Ophelia. It doesn't look too bad-- except that my prototype is in an eye-searing fuschia fabric with hot pink ribbon trim. I'm saving my plain muslin to make medieval dresses and Snow White's "rags." I de-boxed Sleeping Beauty this afternoon-- spent the whole afternoon arranging her and combing her hair. Here's the place from which she came, but, I'm not sure how much longer the page will be there. Anyway, she's even more beautiful than the picture. Her hair is very long and lank. She's huge, almost like a real little person, in my antique rocking chair.