Creative Sewing

 

My sister Peggy started sewing when she was just eight years old. She collected scraps our mother had planned to use for cleaning rags and created outfits for her dolls. What began as a hobby has developed into a lifetime fascination. One little girl visiting her house counted over one hundred dolls, all dressed in outfits she has made.

Some of Peggy’s dolls have been attired in clothing representing family members like our Aunt Effie. She buys used dolls at second-hand stores, washes them, repaints faces and makes them new clothes. Then she makes them available at craft shows. “The most fun is watching a little girl pick out a doll her family could not otherwise afford at less than half the price of a new American Girl doll.”

Over the years several dolls have found their way into the arms of girls without any cost at all. Recently a family from Kenya began attending Grace Baptist Church of Muncie, Indiana, where Peggy is a member. The mother attended a missionary school in Kenya, went to nursing school through the generosity of someone in America and worked at a missionary hospital as a nurse. She and her husband have just moved to America. Peggy took them a restored American Girl Bitty Baby for their ten-month-old daughter. “The doll opened a long conversation and I believe they will be faithful members at Grace,” says Peggy.

This summer Peggy found one of her dolls for sale at Goodwill. She had sold it at a craft store twenty years ago and it was still in good shape. “Of course, I bought it,” she says. “I used it in my Chinese Sunday School class to illustrate ‘redeemed’ just like Mom used to do with the Little Boat Twice Owned story.”

Isn’t it amazing what learning to sew at eight years of age can become?