The start

I am a 63 year old woman living in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.   I want to write about my crafting but I also want to talk about life.  I sew, do  papercrafts, and have a vast collection of seldom used cookbooks.

I am a "retired" substitute teacher, social worker and insurance agent. In the last two years I lived alone again for the first time in over 40 years. My younger daughter is mildly mentally handicapped.  I finally agreed to her living in a group home  2 years ago when she was 28.  It turns out she ended up  moving into a semi apartment in adult foster care. She is living with a great family.   It's been a shock to my system! I admit to talking to my 3 pets a lot.  I have a dog and two cats.  My younger daughter visits with me two or three weekends a month.  My older daughter is married with two wonderful ( of course!)  small children.  She and her husband have very demanding careers as  attorneys. I am an animal lover,  ADD,  opinionated, sometimes a social activist and volunteer, and Christian! Currently I am an ebay seller of mostly Stampin up retired items.

I love ebay selling.  I really do.  But some times the only time  I talk to a  human is when I get the mail!   I like being self employed.  I only have myself to blame if I pay too much for things to resell,  or make bad buys.  It's difficult for me to have any structure in my life.  I'm working on rounding out my life.

I suspect that there are many others like me out there... no longer working in their profession,  fairly isolated and broke. 

This is what is "in the works" for me:

1.  I am trying out different slow cooker recipes.

2.  I went to S R Harris Fabric warehouse with my 5 year old granddaughter and bought all kinds of very fancy fabrics.  I had no idea how I was going to put them together!   When I spent  a days in Iowa with my sister after surgery,  she helped me bring the ideas into one concrete plan.  So I will be making "princess" type dresses for Christmas and her birthday a month later. 

3.  I found all my doll and soft toy patterns yesterday.  Since I was 12 years old I have collected the Women's Day magazine patterns by Joan Russell. These very tattered pages I ripped out of the magazines are among my most cherished possessions.  I got a few from Better Homes and Gardens but mostly Women's Day.  I finally got a used copy of the Women's Day Book of Soft Toys from Amazon. The illustrations are black and white!  The torn pages are in color.  I mourned the end of the "make it" issues of Family Circle and Women's Day,, the ones with 100 ideas and patterns for Christmas gifts that included knitted and crocheted items, sewn things and even  wood working. 

I want to make some soft dolls to sell on ebay and perhaps give a few to Toys for Tots.  About 12 years ago I made 20 dolls hoping to raise money for the church boiler.   I greatly enjoyed it!  I learned a lot!  After looking at all these photos and patterns I realized I could make my own patterns.  

I bought some black yarn last week and yesterday went to a big sale at Joann Fabrics and got muslin in white, regular muslin unbleached color, tea color, light and dark brown color.  I got some boucle yarns in red,  platinum blonde and some plainer wool yarn in honey blonde and brown.  I had to put the fun eyelash yarns back as they were not on sale!   I also got some vanilla colored fleece for making some baby toys. They need to be washable and have nothing that can come loose or get tangled in their fingers.

I will be experimenting with hand embroidering and painting features on.

4.  I am trying to meet new people.  I've been playing cards with a meet up group.  It's a bit far and it's a bit expensive to buy drinks there.   I will be trying out a few more of the church groups.  ( I moved 4 years ago and started attending here 2 years ago). 

5.  I have training coming up as a volunteer teacher/ tutor in corrections next month.  I don't know where they need help yet.  I miss teaching. Substitute teaching was never boring, but at times it was very stressful being in a new classroom all the time and worrying about doing something wrong.  I think I worked in 45 different schools! I believe in education and I believe that inmates who want education should get it.  I'm not talking state paid Ph D programs here, but GED programs. The volunteer coordinator told me there are huge changes going on with some juvenile programs closing or moving.