Ballerina Bunny, hand knit doll
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This Ballerina Bunny was created in celebration of many important apects of my life. I was raised in a household where giving and receiving handmade dolls was a very big part of our family culture. The joy of making them has never gone away and only increased with time.
The project of the Ballerina Bunny was created from a pattern I had found (but no longer retain). It spoke to me because it encompassed a lot of my favorite things all at once: my love of ballet; my work as a ballet teacher; my love of animals, knitting, and dolls. I was especially smitten with the tutu and the faux-toe shoes. It was also a good project for learning different knitting techniques and to be able to see results quickly.
Most importantly, I knew it would make my mom happy. She had been my knitting teacher and I wanted to show her how much she had taught me. At the time, my mother was battling the final stages of her illness. I had caught a cold and for 3 weeks it was unsafe for me to visit with her, so I was seeking a way that we could still do something together that made us both feel useful and happy. Making a knitted doll, with so much personal resonance, seemed like a good solution. We talked over the phone regularly about how to approach different parts and fix issues and share pictures of our progress.
When I was finallly able to present it to Mom, her excitement was beyond what I had imagined. She loved it, for so many reasons, and certainly for more than just the accomplishment of knitting. That's what makes it a treasure - because it's an everlasting, irreplaceable, shared experience of the heart captured in each and every stitch.
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