No photos today...I don't have one of the ABC book I made years ago for my daughters....My youngest is expecting her first child, and out of the blue, she called me to ask me if I remembered an alphabet book that I made for the them when they were little. She started talking about it and the memories came flooding back. I made it back in the early seventies.....
It was a fabric ABC book, entirely made with muslin squares, and every page had something stitched down and made from vinyl or felt. We started going through the alphabet and came up with quite a few. It was so wonderful to be taken back to that time. As she talked to me about the pages she remembered, I could see myself back at my craft table, sewing these pages and enjoying making the book so much as it came together.
Some of the pages we remembered were: b for banana, the peel was velcroed in place and you had to peel the banana. C was for clock, it had moveable hands....i was for igloo. It was little felt white pieces velcroed in place...like a little puzzle...J for jack-in-the-box--open the lid with a stretchy cord and button, and the jack in the box slid out on some sort of stick. K was for kite, the little bows on the kite tail snapped and unsnapped. There were real laces to tie and untie on a shoe, Q was for a quilt where you had to weave the strips in and out..T for tree had little felt acorns to snap back on the tree top, and the V page had a violin with stretchy elastic strings. Wish we could have remembered all the pages. I think I had checked the book out of the library, and painstakingly copied all the patterns onto tracing paper, then cut out all the parts, then sewed and glued and put them together. Every page had something for the child to do on it, from buttoning, lacing, fastening, zipping...great fine-motor skills practice!
Kerry said she played with that book for years, it was so gratifying to hear that. I didn't remember that it was one of her favorite childhood toddler activities.. It made me so happy to hear that!..She wanted to know if I'd make her a 2012 one for her baby. Of course I will, sweetie! It will be so fun to try and recreate that with a slightly more modern take on the alphabet. Probably will change the J page to something other than a jack-in-the-box. Will have to forget the "jacks" idea, too! Too ancient for today's kids!
I loved taking that memory trip down memory lane today.......
Two crafty sisters, Lyle and Jeannie, wanting to remember their mom, Millie, who gave them their creative genes...A little about crafts, a lot about living life...Jeannie lives in SW Florida, Lyle lives in Michigan. Although miles apart in distance, we are a lot alike in spirit and love, we love to create things! Lyle has taken a back seat at the moment in the crafting department, but she'll be back one of these days!
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