The Troll Doll Channel: Forbidden love!

Trolls are another rekindled fascination from my far-ago youth. When I was about ten, and everything was right with the world, I had a troll collection, and I collected "with" some of my girl friends. None of us had more than, maybe, half a dozen trolls at any one time, though a certain amount of trading and swapping went on. Some hair washing ended in disaster, as the hair was lumpy mohair and actually got rotten, so that collectible trolls now almost all have replacement mohair which is long and gorgeous. My two Iggy Normous trolls are a case in point. I never made outfits for my trolls back then, as they were all the teeny-tiny ones with DAM on the back (I only have one of those now, and it cost more than most of the rest of them). This collection just builds on itself, and I wonder where it will end sometimes - when I run out of money, or room?

Hardest thing I've ever knitted! Emily's fancy peplum

Knitting is a solace and a comfort to those of us who find it difficult to be a participant in this world. Sometimes I just want to withdraw, to put my feet up. To have a cat. To knit is to "make", while the world unmakes itself right before my eyes. It knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care, and all that. I no longer have babies to knit for, so I BUY babies now: though I did not have the slightest interest in dolls as a child and even scorned them, I now find myself drawn to them as a comfort, collecting them (all right, I have three - or two and a half, as one of them has been ordered but isn't here yet), even wanting to knit things for them. I am old now, do not give two figs what anyone thinks, and if I like doing something and it gives me joy, then I'll do it, flaky or not. This was one of my harder and hokier creations, with a bobbly stitch that would look much better in a larger size. In this case, the bobbles are the size of golf balls in relation to the size of the sweater, which is supposed to fit a newborn baby. But who can tell what sorts of interests will creep in where other things, much more painful or stressful things, have vacated or been taken away?