Advent Retreat in San Francisco

December 5, 2010Advent, buildings, church, Nativity, people, San Francisco, travelGretchenJoanna

The skies were gray above, the asphalt and sidewalks dark and wet below, but colors jumped out at me as we were leaving Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco this afternoon.

Two of us had traveled to attend lectures by Father Alexander Golitzin on “The Advent of the Christ.” Father Alexander is Professor of Patristics at Marquette University, and the lectures were rich with references to ancient Judaic texts, little-known Persian Christians in the 4th Century, the Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament scriptures and the beloved liturgical hymns that tie our salvation history together into a whole.

My heart and mind didn’t want Fr. Alexander to stop, even though I had the feeling as of a voice saying, “Whoa — that is a bit much to feed me all at once.” I left the cathedral worn out and happy, holding my notebook full of scrawls that I hope to meditate on further.

The flowers, though….they must be part of the large family of metaphors that tell about God taking on human flesh, entering our world as an infant at a particular point in history. Something about beauty and color and brightness breaking into the winter.

How Fasting Works

December 3, 2010churchfastingGretchenJoanna

The fasting periods that the Church gives us are hard to write about on a personal level, so I appreciate it greatly when someone does a good job of it, like Svetlana on her blog My Sears Catalog Life. A blog name like that always makes me want to know more about the host, which is how I came upon her site.

What do I have to say about fasting? God, help!

First Doll Rebecca

November 30, 2010crafts, dolls, familydoll clothes, sewingGretchenJoanna

I’ve begun sewing doll clothes for a Christmas present, and my sewing room is starting to get messy again, with all the scraps and pattern pieces swirling about like my creative juices. This doll and her clothes were waiting on the bed in that room, and as they have already been lost in the house several times in the last years, I thought I better take their pictures right away and add to my blog sewing archives the first successful doll clothes I ever made.

Oh, I sewed some other ones by hand when I was ten years-old or so, for my Barbie. But I didn’t have a pattern, just laid the doll on some scraps, cut out what looked to me like the shape the garment should take, and when I sewed the pieces together I was always surprised at how ill-fitting the clothes were. I can almost see the very shirts and dresses in my mind, though I threw them away pretty early.

Rebecca was the first doll given to my first daughter Pearl. She was hard and small and her limbs didn’t move, but I thought she was good enough to be The Doll, and I discouraged relatives from giving Pearl any more because “She has a doll already.” I was different then.

Sewing for a doll like that is challenging; knitted clothes are a bit easier to get on when the dolly insists on holding her arms stiffly by her side. I wasn’t an experienced knitter but I found some patterns for much larger doll clothes at the thrift store and managed to adjust them for this little mite. This gives me hope that in the future I might be able to at least knit a dishcloth that I like.

The pictures show most of the wardrobe I made for Rebecca 30-plus years ago. Nowadays I like to use velcro fasteners; I don’t know if we didn’t have it back then or if I just liked the old-fashioned and time-consuming snaps or button loops that the little girl almost certainly couldn’t do up for her own doll. As I recall, the young children are good at ripping off the dolls’ clothes and then they come to Mama to help them dress up the dolls again. If Mama is busy there can be a lot of naked dollies lying around.

Pearl did eventually get some other dolls, the My Friend Dolls made by Fisher-Price, and I sewed for them a little. I never thought to take photos of the clothes, but I plan to, next time I see Mandy, Becky and Jenny.

For the granddaughters’ dolls, so far I’ve only made the clothes for Maxi-Muffin shown here. Now I’m working on an American Girl type of doll clothes, for which many patterns are available. With luck I’ll have some photos of these creations within the month.