If only we could patch up the earth

Pic from the web

One year at school, we were asked to make a patchwork doll for Sister Wilcox, who was our school Principal. We all loved Sr Wilcox for she was so gentle and loving. Her English classes were superb, and we loved her British accent. To top it all, she gave us fair turns to play out our favorite Shakespearean actors during her classes.

So when we were told to get her a gift, we thought of all the stuff we could buy at the store. But never did we imagine that our teacher would ask us to make a rag doll!! The doll was to be around two feet in height. We set to work as fast as we could.

Anuja said she had lots of old clothes with nice Rajasthani patterns. She would bring a pile of clothes from home. Some of us who were not too keen on needlework opted to sort out the clothes and choose the best patterns. Santosh was good at stitching, so we persuaded her pick her team to use the sewing machines in the needlework room. Mamta said she and her friends would cut bits as Santosh’s team sewed them on.

Soon we had a rectangular shaped patch’d up bits of cloth which we would use as the doll’s gown. But what about the doll? Ah, we had clearly forgotten all about Ms Daisy Dee!

The work was really an uphill task, we realized, as we cut two strips of white muslin cloth in the shape of a doll. Then we stitched them together, leaving a hole to stuff cotton. Once the doll was plumped up into shape with cotton, we stiched on the eyes, nose and a nice large smile. Golden wool was served as her hair and we had to stitch each thread on painstakingly. And blue buttons did nicely as her eyes. Finally, we managed to stitch a blouse and the patchwork gown to match. We wrapped her up on gauze paper and put her in a box. Sister Wilcox really loved it, and smiled at us in her usual shy manner. We smiled back, but were mostly hoping that there would be no further needlework for the next year at least.

If making a patchwork doll were so difficult, imagine patching up a gas station to make a ‘recycle’ statement! To take a generous ‘patch’ of story which first came out in treehugger.com, New Yorker Jennifer March took up this project by inviting kids from all over the world to take part in selling the ‘recycling’ idea by covering an old gas station in Syracuse (N.Y) with colorful patches. Pieces of motif’ed cloth, crocheted patches, knitted scarves, silk screens, collage fibers were all used to make the pretty picture. All it takes is a wee bit o’ cloth and a whole lot o’ will.