Stitches of Love

Momma & Sissy

The following bit of prose is something I wrote a few years back.  It is to honor my mother, a master seamstress.  Momma made clothes for four daughters, three granddaughters and their dolls.  Even the 7 grandsons had shirts, shorts, jackets and pjs from Granny Mary's gifted hands and machine.  The prose was inspired when my younger sister found doll clothes in Mom's hot, dusty attic one August day in Texas.

Me & doll

Stitches of Love

by Janice Adcock

The picture of a child holding her doll so near.

The dress made by the child's mom, still young, so dear.

The doll was maybe the child's very "first born" 

Or her closest, best friend that she would dress and adorn.

With means limited by a farmer's meager income,

Momma Stitched togs from scraps, lovingly homespun.

No matter to the child as she squealed with delight

When she saw the clothes by Christmas' morns' first light.

Now the child with her youth and dolls all long gone,

Cleans out the attic where her "first babe" was "born".

And there in a box amid the dust and the heat,

The grown child finds a treasure so rare, so sweet.

First the veil, then the slip, a blouse and a shoe.

There are ginghams and formals for her & her sister's dolls, too.

No matter the fabrics are stained, fragile and worn,

The woman's heart soars as on that Christmas morn.

The joy is neither that of a child at play, 

Nor long forgotten clothes seeing the light of day.

The Joy is a true blessing from God above,

To once again see her Momma's Stitches of Love.

Written April, 2007

One of the items was a dress that was on the last doll I received from Santa, a V-18 Revlon doll.  I spent the next months on ebay bidding on original underwear, replacement stockings and shoes.  I washed and cleaned Elizabeth Suzanne's hair and body.  Now she sits in John Roger's little rocking chair in our living room.  I still look for the "right" Toni doll on ebay in order to dress her in one of the items found in the attic.

My wedding.  Mom made all the bridesmaids & flower girl's dresses.
My four nephews jackets were made by Mom.

May each person who reads this have the joy that my sister and I shared as we went through the box of long, lost doll clothing.  The majority of the pieces Sissy found in that hot attic were things our mother had made for our different dolls.  Quite an emotion fill time to sit and touch the things of childhood that we had assumed were lost.  To literally touch stitches that were over fifty years old.  Stitches made in the wee hours of the morning while Sissy and I slept.  To once again with the appreciation of an adult child to see Momma's Stitches of Love.