Hello, Dollys

Inspiration left, woolly dolly right. I made a jacket out of the purple wool and so she is scraps. I needle felted the flower, and I might yet needle felt more design. Also her hair, which I am not sure of. I think I either need to make the head bigger or the hair smaller, or switch back to the fabric hair.

These little dolls are started to become a lovely doodle for me- a way to work in small scale and try things. I am somehow adverse to small quilts. I made a Hope quilt for the Alzheimer's initiative, and I came home to find a family member using it as a pot holder. ( Yes, this really happened, why do you ask?) It about summed up my own ambivalence for making small scale quilts. What, exactly, are they? How do I display them without putting a lot of holes in the wall? Where do they live? How do I store them? How is storing them in a box different from throwing them away?

Somehow dollys, while being clutter in their own right, are different. Perhaps it is because they represent the human form, the more sacred from of human, the baby. Maybe it's because I am accustomed to dolls doing nothing and being nothing- they are just dolls. You just look at their little faces, and smile at them, and put them in little groups.

Now, I know that there are doll haters out there. I had a childhood friend who's mother went to a great deal of trouble and expense to make a collection of dolls of the world for her daughter, starting in babyhood. They creeped my friend right out, to the point that she stood on a chair and turned them all to face the wall before she could fall asleep at night. She hated the little staring eyeballs. Yes, she did grow up to be a normal person, why do you ask?