The first day of learning to sew was a minor disaster. I say “minor”, but to be honest, between stabbing my fingers with the needle all day and accidently sewing myself to the dress I was fixing a button for, I was feeling rather discouraged. If there was anything to say good about the whole affair it was that I had spent so much of the day talking that my voice had gotten hoarse by the end of it.
Sadly though, all I’d managed to say was “ouch” over and over again until I went hoarse. But progress is progress I suppose. But I didn’t give up, and met Sister Margaret for the second day. The day went better than the first in that I didn’t stab my fingers as much, but that cut down how much I was talking which left me feeling a little depressed. Thank the Gods for Sister Margaret though because she could tell I was struggling to fill the silence between us and would gently talk about things to help me.
“No, the needle needs to come through the same hole it came out of if you’re going to undo a stitch.”
“Go diagonally between button holes.”
“Small stitches. Keep the lines straight.”
“How did you manage to sew your dress to that cloth again?”
See? She’s a very kind lady who was willing to help me work on my conversation skills. I honestly hope I grow up to be as kind as her.
Slowly though I began to answer her when she spoke, though I will admit that most of my answers were “yes”, but progress is progress! She never stopped helping me, no matter how badly I messed up, and thanks to that I slowly progressed from fixing buttons to attaching patches to fix tears. From there I progressed to using old clothes to make cleaning rags. Finally after two months I made my first doll. This of course was something that prompted a lot of serious thought and I even got Sister Margaret's advice on!
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“No, a zombie isn’t really appropriate to make a doll of. What about something like a prince or a princess?”
The mentioning of making a prince doll got me thinking of Klaus. From his strong tanned body with its rippling muscles to his onyx eyes to his black hair to the family cornet made from real dragon horn that he wore- oh I caught myself drooling there.
Ahem. Needless to say making a doll of my beloved was something I wanted to do, but wasn’t capable of. I mean with my meager sewing skills right now it wouldn’t even look all that much like him and I’d just end up getting discouraged.
No, the “princess” idea was one that was definitely better. I even knew who I could base such a doll off of! Back (well, back, you know, in the future) when I moved to Klaus’ home after we got married I learned he’d been sheltering triplet princesses from a fallen kingdom by employing them as his maids. The three girls were all members of the banshee race but despite this were incredibly pretty and save for minor feature differences were hard to tell apart. That is until they started talking.
Anyways my favorite of them was Lucille who served as my personal maid. She was a sweet girl that was more like an older sister than a maid and I loved to let her braid my hair. So with her in mind I worked on my first doll.
With white cloth for skin, black hair and blue eyes she wore a blue dress made out of an old sheet and was stuffed with scraps of old cloth. She wasn't a perfect doll, but she was my very first ever.
Which made the accident when I tried to imbue it with a summoned shade rather painful. I mean at first it seemed to be going well as I gathered the dark flaming soul of a shade and pressed it into the chest of the doll. And then she began to expand as the energy contained in that shade's soul pushed outward from the inside of the doll and it burst like a bubble.
Looks like this was going to be harder than I thought.