A Thousand Hits!

I just noticed this weekend that the blog patrol counter has just passed the 1000 mark. This is very exciting to me as I figured that the only folks who might stop by more than once were my friends and family. Even if you have gotten terribly lost in the world of blogs, I hope your visit here was pleasant and maybe even a little inspiring. Be creative, change your socks, maybe just rearrange your magazines. A little change goes a long way to a fresh perspective. I have even "met" some wonderful new people and have been very inspired myself, by other folks' blogs.

The group of dolls above are primarily "Skookums," wonderfully simple in construction but ingeniously dressed in their woven blankets. There are a couple Navaho dolls and the rest are Seminole Indian dolls in their colourful layered skirts with the bodies made of coconut husk. Again these were mostly my mom's and she has passed them on to me.

Many, many years ago, we(she) began picking up international dolls at Christmas sales from places like Oxfam and the Neighbourhood Services store in Ottawa. They were almost always handmade back then and just beautiful. I took these dolls to school for show and tell, did projects on other countries based on what was in my collection and even had them displayed at school (you know, those neat glass cases that hang on the wall and make everything look so important) and even in the local library. Much of the original dolls are gone but a few still linger, old favourites from Pakistan, Punjab, Italy, Russia, and Ireland. What did you collect as a kid?