My wish was to follow with Native American tradition in creating something for my grand daughter. Dolls were created for the little ones out of perishable items that were on hand such as corn husks, pine needles and sometimes furs. Even though they were perishable, they were still intricately adorned and helped in dealing with stress, teaching important life lessons and coping skills. Over the child's growth the dolls wore out, signifying the growth of a young child into adulthood. You can read more at
Native American Dolls ,
Indians.org,
Tribal Directory and
Smithsonian Institute - Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies has a wonderful instruction tutorial to read. It is absolutely full of information!
Little girls Love their dollies and Little girls Love their mommy even more so it was decided that she needed a dolly of Mommy!
My grand daughter lives with us and to ease her stress and transition of being away from her mommy, we've decided to create a dolly she can play with, dress up using cast-off items, found and recycled objects that were on hand - even though they are not necessarily items used such as the pine and corn husks of the past - they are still on-hand. Some of the embellishments have special meaning and significance to my grand daughter, such as a necklace her mother gave to her. It got broken so it became a piece of the dolly memorabilia.
In the construction of Mommy, I free handed a template, cut out and sewed the body. The hair was bits of leftover binding from a quilt project. Of course Mommy needed a face so we used a good photo to transfer to fabric and sewed it on. Mommy also needed a heart to show how much she loves her own baby girl. From there, it was dressing Mommy time. Grand daughter can add clips, clothing and all sorts of accessories to Mommy when she desires. Mostly she just likes dancing with her and snuggling with her at night.
Her underclothing was created from the sleeve of Grandpa's old shirt and other clothing from bits and pieces of grand-daughter's out grown clothing.
The concept is definitely not a new one and there are widely known dolls that are available for purchase as well. Resources to purchase a doll similar to mine are
Daddy Dolls &
Hug A Hero which are most notably recognized with their association in making dolls for family members of our Armed Forces. Or you can use your imagination and start creating one of your very own!
What sort of items would you save in creating your very own doll? It is quite interesting to hear what others from different age groups and areas would chose.
Another artist that I wanted to mention, although I've not created a work as such, is Louise Baldwin.
By using found and recycled objects she creates a combination of hand-stitched and machine embroidered works of art. You can read more about
Loiuse Baldwin Here and
Here. There are many of her works that are an inspiration and to pick only one would be difficult. Two of my favorite works of inspiration are "
Wednesday" and "
For Indoor Use Only".
You can also use the
technique used by Louise to create a treasure from trash.
Some ideal items to save are food packaging, mailers, used postage stamps, domestic animal feed sacks mixed with various fibers and fabrics to create your own collage.
If you would like to check out some previous editions of the hop check out
http://tweloquilting.blogspot.com/p/art-with-fabric-blog-hop.html.
For a complete list of participants in the blog hop, please visit each of my quilty friends below, And don't forget to visit the wonderful host Alida at
Tweety Loves Quilting.
Monday, October 9th, 2017
Tuesday, October 10th, 2017
Wednesday, October 11th, 2017
Thursday, October 12th, 2017
Friday, October 13th, 2017
