You will often hear me refer to how the Universe works and delivers. My spirituality is deeply rooted in nature, and reading the signs that the Universe puts in my path. At the beginning of the summer a notice came out on the campus where I work about suggested books from campus authors that would be good summer reads. I picked up one of the selections from the campus library and read about half of it at the beginning of the summer. The summer started to fly by between kayak trips, soccer, work, and life and the book stayed on the coffee table whispering, and then yelling at me to please finish reading it!

This morning, I had a quiet moment to sit down and finish reading it. I am so glad that I did. It is a moving memoir that I would actually like to read again. It is call Siberian Exile by Julija Sukys. It is well written, deeply personal, and guttural. It is the type of story that pulls you out of your own privileged existence and try imagine what it was like to experience this as a family. It was the cover image that drew me into reading it. Julija honestly shares her family story and and research in a moving read.

The book explores the narratives of her paternal grandparents during her grandmother's exile to Siberia in 1941 and their subsequent multi-year separation. I will leave the rest to you to read with my highest recommendation. Now, here is where the Universe delivered some signs to me this morning. Throughout the book Julija does a really good job of weaving in the political and historical backdrop that is a central character to the narrative. In one of the later sections of the book she mentions the view of the cultural image of the Germans by the local Siberians and she mentions the Volga Germans. If you are unfamiliar, in the 1760's Catherine the Great recruited ethnic Germans to settle along the Volga River in Russia and lived there for a very long time. 

This immediately caught my eye, as I may have shared; I always thought my material grandfathers parents were Russian and have come to learn in the past few years that they were actually Volga German Russians from the Saratov region. My great grandfather Jacob immigrated to the United States right before the Bolshevik Revolution when he was just a teenager. I don't know the exact age my great grandmother Amalia immigrated here but she was also Volga German and likewise came from Saratov region of Russia. I am just starting to understand and put together an understanding of my own family history. I joined a Facebook group for Volga German ancestry and plan on trying to read and understand more about this part of my ancestry. Today inspired me to read more about Volga Germans, and I learned that during the same time frame that Julija's grandmother was exiled to Siberia; there was a mass deportation of Volga Germans to Siberia as well. Though my great grandparents immigrated about 20 years prior to this event, I can only image some of my ancestors that were still in that region experienced this mass exile. 

I think I was meant to read this memoir and family story. Though I don't have the letters and stories to piece together a part of family story in quite such an amazing way, I have a few maps and names of my ancestors and I feel the need to starting digging a little more and falling down the genealogy rabbit hole that seems to find people in their later years. Maybe it is that anticipation of milestone birthday next year that has me thinking about all of this. Time to find more family pictures, try to find more stories, and dive into the family history that is in my DNA. 

Till, then I will leave you with the definition of the title of this blog post, familienbuch. Sometimes it refers to a printed book, sometime a family genealogy. In German it means family book. Pretty fitting either way. I hope to read this moving book again, give a copy to my mama, and maybe even run into Julija on campus someday. 

Like so many others, I can remember the first time I discovered Jess Brown and her rag dolls. It was the February 2012 Martha Stewart Living magazine. They caught my eye and I even remember talking with other maker friends in my community about them. It was love at sight with this amazing hand crafted toy. That year I had a milestone birthday as well. Turning 40 made me realize that I always wanted to approach aging and growing through the memory lens of my childhood.

I grew up with a maker mama and family in a very loving and imaginative environment. My parents raised me and my sisters in the country in rural Missouri in an amazing old two story farmhouse that they rehabbed and brought to life. Sometimes I am a broken record but it really was a great way to grow up. I had relatively few toys; but always just enough and a whole world at my fingertips between the house, barns, woods, etc . . .

I don't remember being given my first doll, I think I was pretty young. I just remember her being there. The texture of the fabric on her body, the colors, the weight, and how she felt. You see she was a Raggedy Ann bean bag doll. When I researched her, she was introduced in 1972. Makes sense, that was my birth year and pretty logical that she was given to me as a wee one. I think there is even a story about her getting lost and how we were somehow reunited.

I grew up reading her stories with my older sister. Yes, my childhood nickname was Christi and obviously I was not a good speller and had a tendency to write inside my books! Maybe it was that love of my first rag doll that bloomed again when I saw Jess Brown's modern takes on this traditionally hand crafted doll, and I was smitten. When I also discovered the sweet book Kiki and Coco in Paris it sealed the deal. That year I purchased a birthday gift to myself of a sweet little pixie Jess Brown rag doll. I think I found her at Land of Nod at the time. Since then she has lived on a shelf in my bedroom and I continued to watch Jess Brown through social media channels as I raised my boys into the teen and young adult world. Days became years and it is still such a joy to see her creations on Instagram.

Here I am 9 years later and already starting to think about how I want to celebrate another big milestone birthday next year and found myself once again thinking about the dolls. My 16 and almost 20 year old are not too interested in toys any longer but my youngest niece is about to start kindergarten and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to finally make a rag doll myself. 

I started a few weeks back by checking out her book from my local library. It really is a gem and I wish I had bought it when it first came out. I relished reading it in bed at night while I worked on tracking my own copy down. It is a little hard to get, guessing the hardback is out of print. Seems like you can get an e-version but I am not sure if the patterns come with the e-version, and I am old school with my books. In the end I found a used copy online for close to the original retail, which I thought was pretty good considered some of the prices I was seeing out there. I do love a good bargain hunt!

Next, I hit up the thrifts stores, flea markets, etc . . . on the hunt for a wool sweater to felt for hair, and textiles for clothes. I ended up finding this beautiful shirt made in India at the flea market that I thought would make the perfect dress. I also picked up some wool yarn that I could knit up in case I could not find a sweater to felt. In the end I did find a sweater and love the look of it for the hair. I understand why she uses it on her dolls.

With the materials all on hand, I dove in last weekend and was surprised that I was able to make her in just a few hours. I used tracing paper to copy the patterns and will confess that I had to make another body. Truth be told I am not a greater sewer, and in all honesty my sewing machine sucks. Somehow the super beginner, super cheap machine I bought back in my college days is on its last legs! Any case I digress. So, with the first body I actually struggled to get the arms turned out correctly so on the second body I did the arms as separate pieces and that worked better for my skill set. 

I used wool stuffing and for the body and then created the dress from that thrifted shirt and made her bloomers from a beautiful embroidered material from my stash. I might need to make my rag doll some bloomers. 

I was actually quite thrilled with her and could not wait to present her to my niece that happen to be sleeping over at our house a couple days later. My niece and I made her a blanket together, it of course had some unicorns from my Heather Ross fabric stash! So I am pleased to present to you Penguin, named and loved by my sweet niece.

I feel like I need to make another soon, you know just to keep those sewing skills fresh. I think I will tuck the next one away for the new grand niece that will be coming into the family later this year!

In the meantime I am thinking about that approaching next milestone birthday next year and am definitely planning on gifting myself another incredible Jess Brown doll. For me, staying young at heart is always keeping my inner child at play.