Memory Makers

I’ve always been a girly girl and enjoyed playing with dolls. I could lose myself for hours making up stories and adventures for them. One year my mom made me a ‘fabric shop’ out of a cutlery drawer insert.

When we were clearing out storage items it was recovered, and she shipped it to me.

The ribbon cards that used to fill the paper cubbies were reduced to just 2, but everything else was still part of the kit.

The matchbox drawers hold buttons.

The contents were in dire need of a bath after 22 years.

Going through everything was a trip down memory lane.

Each piece of fabric came from an adult, child’s or doll-size version of a garment hand-sewn by mom once upon a time. Some of my dolls and I had matching jumpers.

While I have taken a sewing class and do own a sewing machine the little store didn’t predispose me to dressmaking.

Though I remember making a tiny doll sweater for a Barbie with my babysitter, knitting and crocheting has only happened sporadically in my life.

Still, the scope of imagination this store held could fill a storybook. I set the shop up on my fireplace mantle for some further reminiscing.

There is even a fabric swatch of the jumper I wore in this picture.

Childhood nostalgia is fun.