Making Dolls

On a whim, I made one. Then I saw some 'Prims', and made another doll. Then Shirley at the Ennis Creative Arts Centre thought it could run as a workshop, so I made two more as examples, dyeing old cotton sheets with tea/coffee for the dolls, and men's shirts for the clothes.

After the workshop, which was hugely enjoyable, I made another doll...this one even more 'prim'. To make her worn-looking, I sandpapered the fabric in places, and made small holes/tears, and wiped the floor with it, and rubbed soot into it and badly hand-stitched the clothes and had a brilliant time altogether.

I think I'll make some more...and make a different pattern/size.
Don't have a picture of the one I made up, but found a pattern for a prairie bonnet, and discovered that by using the measurements as centimetres instead of inches, the bonnet fits these dolls.

Instead of making the drawstrings, which would have been a fiddle too far, I just gathered the back. The whole primitive/naive look appears to be big in America, but I don't think it's admired here -  unless it's the cutesy variety...

And then...a neighbour asked me if I'd make her some of the  fairy 'helpers' that I'd made a few years ago. More playing...even if it is cutesy...so I did...

These are the cleaning, cooking and shopping (ah, the shopping one is missing) fairies that help you get through Christmas...

Here's the shopping one. The feather duster and groceries are fiddly to make but enjoyable in a slightly masochistic (?) way. No, it's not that...whereas gathering the back of the doll's bonnet rather than fiddling to make the drawstrings makes little difference visually, the parcel and bag of oranges in the shopping bag makes a big difference to the end result...so I'm prepared to put in the effort.