The Olive Sparrow Child — Meg (short for Megan)

A child has flown the nest, her name is Meg (short for Megan) and she is about 50 cm tall. Her new mom will be Juliana and it is her Birthday today!

Emily-sitting-pretty

 

Emily-portrait

Emily-pants-shoes

Emily-booths

Emily-pirate

Emily-pirate-2

Emily-pirate-3

There are also other children in the works and clothing and goodies, as the Olive Sparrow will be a vendor at the Waldorf Academy Winterfair in Toronto on December 4th. So exciting and loving the rush of creation.

 

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
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, north-eastern-Ontario green processed wool stuffing, her own hand-dyed wool/mohair for the dolls hair.

She uses 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. 

All Olive Sparrow Children’s hair is made from a crochet 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). The hair of each doll is made from wool or mohair yarns.

 

The Olive Sparrow Children: Custom Clothes Order

A large order for doll clothes had to finally be finished. There was some delay, first due to package with client's fabrics being delayed in delivery, then my life running away with me, a trip to Europe, a sewing-machine with a boo-boo, and now, finally, a completed order. 

Doll-clothes-1 

Doll-clothes-2

 

Doll-clothes-3

 

Doll-clothes-4

Doll-clothes-5

Doll-clothes-6
 

The final count: 

4 skirts, 2 tunics, 2 blouses, 2 jackets, 2 diapers with inserts, 2 pairs of booties, 2 hats, 1 scarf and 1 scarflet, as well as 2 dresses altered from the client's girls own clothes.

Today I went and got a few more wool sweaters in girly colours to make booties for this years children that are currently in the works. I will again participate in the TWS Candlelight Fair (info of last year's fair, 2010 dates to be announced when available). Please note, I am not taking any custom orders of dolls for the rest of the year, however, if you are interested in the children, there will be a chance to preview them on this site.

 
 

Harey Business

Not for easter, so not way behind schedule, yet so pleased to having gotten this done together with Huxley.

Bunny-cage-1 

Bunny-cage-2 

Bunny-cage-3 

Bunny-cage-4
 
 
 Project notes:

Bunny hutch from the dollar store (sorry, but that big "M" craft store was selling these for almost $5, I got this one for $1). The bunnies and the hare are by Schleich (although some of ours might not be available anymore.

Needle felted lettuce, mega carrot (with a little bit of wet felting to make it less hairy) and water bowl – made by me.

Needle felted straw hutch insert and grassland including a little pond made by Huxley. 

I used a very large about 3" thick piece of upholstery foam to needle felt on. I sat right besides Huxley and instructed him very closely on how to wield the dangerous tool. 

There is a constant struggle in my life of finding time to make projects with Huxley. After spending the morning at the studio (from 7 am until 10:50 am), picking him up at kindergarten, driving home, making a full lunch (which tends to be our main meal of the day, sitting down with daddy), then doing the dishes, having a snooze for 10 minutes (I get up at 5 am), while Huxley has his quiet time for about an hour, I am then ridden with guilt if I don't do my housewife duties for the whole afternoon. I need to try to set one afternoon a week aside at least where we just do something. The above project took about half an hour to make. So it is definitely doable. 

Hop, hop, hop…..

A little bit of diversion

Stair-reno-composite

This stairwell has been my life for the past weeks (well, kind of). We had our amazing friend and Huxley's godfather visiting for three weeks to work on our house. The plan was to finish all the casings in the master bedroom, hang the door (hey, there is a strange notion, a door to the master bedroom.. (grin/blush/grin) and some other odds and ends. On a whim, we decided to also take out that hideous carpet in the hall. The carpet in the "Then" picture was at it's best, ever, as the picture was taken before we even moved in and before all the upstairs and rest of house demolition and renovation was done. Its state was truly disgusting just before it came out… and out it came, with some the carpet being held down by about 200 staples on one (!!!) stair. I think Michel spend at least a whole day just removing the staples alone.

He then dismantled most of the stairs, sanded every single bit down to the original oak, and believe me, if it would be possible to capture that exact colour, we would have left it, but the moment you add something to the wood, it darkens. Which is where the magic of our treatment comes in. Pickling, a technique I had read and heard about a lot in the past. Our house is about 1200 square feet, spread over 3 floors, with an awning in the back and a covered porch in the front. We face east and west. On the west-side, we are also right across the street of a magnificent old school, three stories high. This all means that the downstairs is very dark. Although I do like dark and aged wood in principle, our entry hall was just oppressive and dingy.

About a year ago, we bought some furniture from that "Swedish for common sense"-place in their light wood colour called "Blonde". The kitchen was repainted in a high-gloss, solid white paint, and a blonde floor laid (just el-cheapo vinyl tiles, as we are still planning to do a more substantive re-vamp in a few years time. All the appliances got replaced in white (great thanks to DH's parents who scored both a fridge and stove for about $250 used at a local auction). 

It has also been over the past few years that I have totally, completely and with all my soul fallen in love with living spaces that are all in white and light colours. The interesting part being various textures. White is also easy to clean, you can really scrub it, or repaint it if needed. So this is what we are going to do with our house. If I remember correctly, the first book that sent me into a daydream was the book Pure Style by Jane Cumberbatch; some time later I walked into a home of a parent from Huxley's old school and it was done up in that exact style… I felt that I had finally found a part of me. I have also since picked up a few other books, Pure Style LivingCool Colors for Modern Living and Thrifty Chic – great inspirations.

It might be strange that as an artist, I don't have seem to have my own decorating style. However, DH is a graphic designer and has very strong opinions. This Pure Style was the first time that we actually agreed on something. I don't yet know how far we will carry it, but it's well under way with the stairwell. Currently DH is sanding and stripping down the door casings into the kitchen, as well as the kitchen door. We have also decided to pickle the top kitchen cupboards (instead of painting them in the gloss white we intended). Now we need to start looking into flooring options for the entry hall. If you have any ideas and links, I would love to know about them. 

Oh, and yes… I am working on dolls too, but they have had to be put away for a bit with the renovations happening. But please do not fret, you will be the first to meet them when they are ready to go to new homes…

The Olive Sparrow Children: Claire

Claire, pretty little Claire is 31 cm tall (12 inches) and was a birthday present for little Maddy a couple of weeks ago. 

Claire-bunny-eseli-linen-front

Here Claire is keeping company with "Eseli" (german for donkey), a little stuffy that is about 40 years old and belonged to me when I was a little girl growing up in Switzerland (and got as a wee little toddler from St. Nikolaus… grin). There is also "Love-Bunny", Huxley's Christmas gift from Bear Noel (a very sweet Holiday Story). The bunny was purchased from Imaginechildhood.com and arrived on the 24th of December, just in time to be wrapped up and placed under the tree. Bear Noel doesn't deliver overnight like Santa, but I had to wrap him up. So many times in the past months I caught myself thinking "Oh, what is that real bunny doing here". I was a bit worried that Huxley at five and a half would be too old to take to the him, but no such fears, he is a favourite and is unbelievably lifelike. 

Claire-bunny-eseli

Here Claire is wearing a pinafore made from fabric that Maddy's mom provided me as memory fabric (generally fabric that the child receiving the doll at one time wore themselves, or that holds other memories that the parents wish to share with the little one). 

Claire-pink-pinny-backview
The memory fabric wasn't quite large enough for the whole piny, so I put some of the green linen from the pants onto the back of it. There is also another memory fabric used as binding on the sleeves of the linen tunic.  


Claire-bunny
Could there be anything more fun than ridding a bunny?

Claire-linnen-pinny

Huxley used to go to school with Maddy and I am friends with her mom, so as a little extra, I crochet the booties and the acorn necklace for Claire. On the front of the linen side of the piny I used another memory fabric piece and sewed a large pocket.

Claire-linen-tunic
On the linen tunic I appliqued three hearts from yet another memory fabric. The easy way working with memory fabric is to have large pieces and make the whole outfit from it, this was more challenging, yet I also really enjoyed finding an appropriate way of incorporating these little itty bitty memories. 

Claire-back-head

This is a view of the mohair wig from the back. I love the colour and the fuzziness of it. 

Claire-portrait
Claire's face, sweetly embroidered wit cotton floss. I tend to make the mouth in more than one stitch, as this provides a better security to the stitches. I am worried that just one large stitch could easily get caught on something and putt, hence distorting the face. The star-type eyes I have always loved, as the various angles of the thread tend to catch the light and add a glossy look to the eye. I double the fabric for the head for extra play-strength. 

Claire really made her way into my heart and she was very hard to let go. I have another few babies on the go, but the past couple of weeks had me locked into my other studio (the artwork), as I had to finish eight works to be sent to the Whistler Village Art Gallery in time for the Olympics. Then my old, trusted, much beloved Bernina needed some tender care and had to spend a couple of weeks in the shop. Today I'm getting to pick her up again, so the fun can start anew. 

An etsy shop is also in the works of being set-up. If you are interested in my dolls and would like to receive an advance notice of Olive Sparrow Children ready for adoptions, send me an e-mail at: info at theolivesparow dot com (replacing the at with an @ and the dot with a .) With "Olive Sparrow Children Pre-view" in the subject line. When Olive Sparrow Children are ready, you will receive a private notice with a profile of the doll before she goes up for general sale at Etsy.

Currently I am accepting 1 custom doll per month, as I have so many little Sparrow Children in my head waiting to be created and "delivered". I started to make these sweet creatures as an alternative creative outlet to my dolls, letting me use my textile skills and visions and brining to fruition a dream that I have had in my heart for about twenty years (more about this in a later post).

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
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, north-eastern-Ontario green processed wool stuffing, her own hand-dyed wool/mohair for the dolls hair.

She uses 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. 

All Olive Sparrow Children’s hair is made from a crochet 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). The hair of each doll is made from wool or mohair yarns.