The Olive Sparrow Child – Baby Dolly
Aa dear client requested if I could possibly make a small baby doll in a sling for her daughter's birthday. Although the deadline was very tight, timing worked out wonderful to create this little as of yet unnamed baby.
She is about 9.5" or 25 cm tall.
Wearing teeny-tiny diapers that close with little snaps.
The sling fits a 44cm Olive Sparrow doll with the baby snuggly cuddled around mami-doll.
Wearing her itty-bitty hat.
Smilling and waiting for her pickup at the studio.
My client and I discussed that they baby should be somewhat unisex in appearance, so that her daughter could pretend to either have a baby-girls or a baby-boy. I think that was successful, as both my husband and my son couldn't right out say which gender the baby is.
While working on the baby, I also started another small doll. I just picked out the colours for her clothes and hope to work on her later today – now, I'm going to let Huxley create some bean bags on the sewing machine – a first for us and we're both very excited.
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Each doll is made up of the following materials.
Skin: 100% cotton (Swiss-made to Öko-Tex-Standard 100)
Stuffing 100% “green-processed” wool batt from Canada
Hair: 100% Wool, or a Mohair/Wool Blend
Clothing: 100% natural fibres (linen, cotton, silk)
Shoes: Recycled felted wool sweaters, or pure leather
Face: 100% cotton Embroidery Thread
Workmanship:
Each doll is created individually by artist Monika Aebischer, the proprietor of The Olive Sparrow. She sources and uses only the highest quality materials in her creations – swiss-made skin fabric, Canadian green processed wool stuffing, wool/mohair for the dolls hair (often hand-dyed by her). Hair for the Olive Sparrow Children is made by crocheting a cap that is sewn to the head, allowing for replacement should it ever become necessary (although most children will object to this, as it changes their doll dramatically). For the wispy hair, a special german mohair is used and a labour-intense technique, for the loose longer hair each strand of wool is individually knotted into the crocheted cap. This is the prime technique for doll-wig creation.
Doll clothing is made from up-cycled vintage and clothing fabrics, in either pure linen, cotton or silk. Up-cycled fabric is wonderful for doll clothes, as the cloth has been washed soft, gentle and free of textile manufacturing products. Monika also felts used woolen sweaters to use for doll shoes and clothing. She knits the doll’s hats out of prime quality knitting wool. Each seam on the doll’s body is sewn twice to allow your child to fiercely love their Olive Sparrow Child. Clothing is sewn with finished seams and some are fully reversible.