The Olive Sparrow Child – Claire

Claire – another Claire (ah, I realized after she told me her name, that she has a friend with the same name). I remember having a best friend named Monika, so there is nothing so unusual about that, is there? Have you ever had a friend with your name?

This Claire is a very, very sweet girl, she measures 35 cm/14" and is my favourite smaller size doll to make – so lovely to hold and take along everywhere.

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Clair is wearing reversible linen/cotton tunic. In the above picture you can see the cotton dotted side facing forward. The tunic is great, because it can also be worn just with the linen pants.

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Here you can see the linen side of the tunic.

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Like most of the Olive Sparrow Dolls, Claire has an actual neck – this makes her look like an older child and gives her face more defined features

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Claire tends to be very quiet and many people think that she is rather introverted. What they don't know is that she is just a still, deep water, yet this water can have some pretty stormy seasons too. She also loves to tell stories and is super, super good at keeping any secret she is told. (having had her sitting with the other Olive Sparrow Children while getting ready for the shows, Claire always knew what everyone else was thinking about, yet she would never share in the whisperings going on on the work table).

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Clairs shoes have some fun integrated felt ruffles and amazingly soft laces. Her hat is knitted of alpaka and mohair wool.

Claire-35cm-face-hat

Because Claire is very quiet, she held back at the shows I took her too and is still looking to find her favourite human friend. Hence she is available in my Etsy shop.   Claire has been adopted.

If you think she might be right for your family, feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.

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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 French seams and some are fully reversible.

 

 

The Olive Sparrow Child – Suzy and Baby-Jo – Available

(Suzy and Baby-Jo are available for adoption – they will be listed in Etsy in the coming days – if you are interested in her, just send me an e-mail and I can give you the details).

Suzy is my newly designed doll. She measures 55cm or about 21" tall – so she is a large doll. She sits very well on her own, and sitting is something Suzy loves to do, because she also has a baby – Baby Josephine, nicknamed Baby-Jo. 

I am headed to the Waldorf Academy to set up my booth, so I will leave you with a few quick pictures of Suzy and Baby-Jo. (There will also be 8 other Olive Sparrow Children available, as well as lovely 6" and 4" bendable nature table dolls). I have also made more clothes since the TWS show 2 weeks ago and now have an extended selection of dresses, tops, pants and hats for 35 , 44-48, and 55cm dolls available.

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Road trip reviews and show announcements

This past Saturday I had a booth at the TWS just north of Toronto. Here a couple of pictures of my booth (I was up the night before the show until 2:30 working on my goodies and then back up at 6 to finish setting up the day of the show) – the photos are not the best photographic work I have ever done (grin)…

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I will show detailed pictures of the dolls after I have completed the show circut for the season.

 

Saturday evening we took the booth down at 6pm and at 7 we got on the highway to drive towards Ottawa for the Ottawa Waldorf School Winterfair. Ottawa is about 550 km's away from Toronto – a lengthy drive. We created a nest for Huxley in the backseat – a traveling bag propped up with a couple of pillows and a blanket – so that he was able to comfortably and safely sleep while my husband did all the driving. My friend Wendo lives along the highway, about an hour away from Ottawa and we got to crash at her place for one night.

On Sunday morning we rose early and drove to Stittsville to set up for the fair.

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Some of the dolls in the picture are sold, the ones still available will be for sale at the Waldorf Academy in Toronto on December 3rd, along with a few other treasures that I am still working on. Including some nature table beauties.

If you are near Guelph Ontario, this coming Friday I will be at the Trillium Waldorf School at the Cranberry market between 7 – 11pm. I would love to see you. Please note, because there is another vendor there with the large dolls, I was asked to not show them there (instead there will be small bendable nature table fairies and mother earth dolls – never before shown.).

Okay, off to the studio to create to my hearts content. 

Goings-on

November will be a very busy month – there are a lot of chances to meet me to learn from me and to see and purchase Olive Sparrow Goods.

Here is a list of events:

Workshop: 

META4 Gallery

Liquid Wax on Paper & Fabric

The workshop I talked about in June was moved to: 

Sunday, November 13 and (optional) Monday, November 14, 10 am – 4 pm

There might still be some space, please contact the gallery directly.

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The Art Guild of Scarborough

Hand-on Mixed Media Workshop Evening with the members of the Art Guild of Scarborough:

Working with personal Imagery – November 17th from 7:30 – 9:30

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www.TorontoWaldorfSchool.com/ArtsCraftsFair

ArtsCraftsFairPoster-2011

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Sunday – November 20th:

 Ottawa Waldorf School

Holly Christmas Fair

10.00am – 3.00pm 

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Friday – November 25th:

Trillium Waldorf School in Guelph, Ontario

Cranberry Market, Friday November 25th from 7pm to  11pm.

(Please note that I will not bring my Olive Sparrow Children to this event – there is another vendor there who will have waldorf inspired dolls). I will have my nature table dolls with me though (not necessarily bunnies, but similar to this.) – and all my other Olive Sparrow Goods

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There are also two events planned for December – The Toronto Waldorf Academy and the London Waldorf School (I will post details in the days ahead).

So I'm better getting to working on my goodies now… I'm hoping to meet some of you at one of these events.