I've had no English lessons to give this week, leaving me free to work on crafty stuff to my heart's content. I'm feeling quite happy with how these little ballerinas turned out and am planning a visit to Hong Kong to ship them off this week. (It's cheaper there, they speak English and they offer insurance! Plus, I've vowed to get there more often. The Sartorialist has been talking up this uber fancy department store called Lane Crawford, and I"m working up my nerve to go check it out. I'm sure its very snooty, but I'm determined to see if it lives up to the hype.) I'm hoping they make their way across the ocean in time to list in my Etsy store for Christmas.
Making these ballerinas made me feel like a little girl playing Barbies all over again. I used to sew elaborate concoctions for my Barbies to wear and then build big mansions out of cardboard boxes (think wrapping paper wall coverings, tinfoil mirrors and toothpaste cap drinking glasses. No detail was overlooked.) I didn't so much play with the dolls as create elaborate scenes for them.
I just had so much fun pulling out all my ribbons and buttons and sequins and going to town. I love the whole process, but especially making their little tutus our of ribbons and feathers and drawing their little faces on with my vast collection of Sharpies. Unfortunately I've now used up all the little knobs I brought with me for heads, so now I've got to hunt all over Shenzhen with my broken mandarin. Should be interesting trying to explain what I'm looking for...I like to imagine what I would do if I worked at Home Depot and some crazy foreign person came up to me with a little doll on a string and started jabbering with horribly accented English; "I want buy wooden ball. I make this. You help me?" Because that is essentially what I'll be doing...
Today our new Australian friends took us to visit "B&Q" which is a British version of Home Depot. It seems quite likely that they are both owned by the same mega corporation because they have the same branding right down to the orange and white signs. No wooden knobs (marble and plastic ones in droves) but they did have some herb seeds. I bought basil, rosemary and mint because the only fresh herb I've seen in ready supply in grocery stores here is Cilantro. Go figure. Anyway, I have a little fledgling herb garden on my windowsill now. We'll see if this adds anything to our culinary efforts. And I'll be sure to regale you with my search for doll heads. Stay tuned.
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