Starchild
A little bit of heaven for your nature table. A six inch tall, bendable Starchild, or also a winterchild. Available tonight in Guelph at the Cranberry market. For details, please see below.
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)…
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.
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:
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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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
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Sunday – November 20th:
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.
The Olive Sparrow Child – Rohnan
Summer, ah, you elusive season. We spent time driving Huxley to and from day camps – fun camp, canoe camp, farm camp, sport camp; we spent a week in Tobermory in a rented cottage – with daddy sick for 3 of the 7 days there; we hung around the home and got errands done; we visited my most lovely friend in Bracebridge; we went to the Toronto Zoo, Toronto Island, the wave pool in Richmond Hill, African Lion Safari, the Art Gallery of Ontario; we slept one night in the tent in the back yard; we touched sting rays, elephants, baby goats, wild chipmunks; we saw an owl, lots of snakes (water snakes and land snakes), frogs, wild lions, water snails, wild rabbit, marmot; we sang songs about not skating in buffalo herds; we went to the local public swimming pool; we watched cartoons; we ate ice cream from a great new ice cream spot up on the Danforth; rode in a speed boat; swam in Georgian Bay's turquoise coloured water; hiked along the Bruce Trail; collected rocks at Dyers bay; touched the flowerpots on Flowerpot Island; ate Birthday cake (mine); made a dream catcher; watched sunsets and stayed up until dark; roasted marshmallows over an open fire; and spent lots of time swinging in our hammock at home. All this wonderful activity, combined with my computer deciding that it had no more room for any new photos is the result of my absence from my beloved blog – a break I needed too.
Today we are at the end of the first week back to school and I have spent this week in the kitchen putting by tomatoes. Three bushels have been processed, another one is awaiting my hands labour.
Rohnan, an Olive Sparrow Child flew the nest in mid August. His pictures got misplaced and I only found the card with them the other day, so here he is:
Rohnan is 30 cm (11") tall and was created for a little two year old boy that is a new member of my dearest friends extended family. The little boy has blond hair and blue eyes, so does Rohnan.
His shirt is made from a re-claimed linen blouse. I wanted a real shirt, but because the little boy is only 2, did not want to put real buttons or snaps (I do not like velcro for dolls clothing), so I sewed a fully lined shirt and sewed it stitched with embroidered buttons.
The hat is knitted out of quivit yarn, handdyed to match the blues of his vest, which in turn was made from a felted very soft woolen sweater.
Deciding on the colours for Rohnans' pants was not easy. I was debating between a khaki green and the bluish linen I ended up using. Huxley helped my decide, he stated that for a two-year old boy it would be wrong to have a doll that has pants that could be military pants. Even after I pointed out to him that adventurers and safari men also wear khaki, he maintained his position that it wouldn't be suitable for the little boy. My dearest friends own son also preferred the lighter pants – Rohnan seems to be very happy with them.
Like so many little boys, Rohnan is very daring and loves his wooden truck. I asked him to please come down and stay safe, which he did promptly – with a huge smile on his face.
Rohnan jumped down and was off to his next adventure….
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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 – Fairy
A lovely fairy has flown away to be with her chosen fairy-mother. She arrived at the birthday of the little girl who turned seven yesterday. As some fairies can sometimes be a bit tardy and easily distracted, she only arrived at dinnertime.
A fairy traveling cocoon. Imagine, a fairy can't just travel through the city outside of the cocoon for everyone to see, she needs to have a place she can feel save in and also know that this will make her appearance a bigger surprise for the little girl.
Fairies can be shy, out little one was at first very shy when I took her into the garden to take pictures of her.
But she hopped onto the chair I had set out for her and decorated with her favourite flowers — Windflowers, also known as Wood Anemone.
The mother of the girl shared with me the little girls favourite doll from the book Flower Fairies of the Spring by Cicely Mary Barker – The Windflower Fairy.
Our fairy turned to face me after I promised to let her read from the book that has her picture inside.
Here is her poem, as written by Cicely Mary Barker in 1923
While human-folk slumber,
The fairies espy
Stars withough number
Sprinkling the sky.
The Winter's long sleeping,
Like night-time, is done;
But day-stars are leaping
To welcome the sun.
Star-like they sprinkle
The wildwood with light;
Countless they twinkle–
The Windflowers white!
("Windflower" is another name for Wood Anemone.)
I have just completed a felting workshop with the lovely Marjolein Dallinga from Bloomfelt so I wanted to create some wood anemone inspired flowers for the Fairy to take with her to the little girl.
Our fairy was soon curious and not so shy anymore, as she looked around the garden and after a while, she even loved having her picture taken.
Since the little girl would love to take the fairy along with her on outings, it was fitting that there would be a hat for the fairy to wear. Fairy hair is so easily tangled up in sunshine and sometimes the wind tries to carry strands of it away. (Birds also love to have it in their nests, as it protects the eggs and the newly hatched young ones).
The Fairy loved playing with the flowers and soon forgot that she was ever shy.
So we went back to the first spot and she stood there for me to take another picture.
I'm very much inspired by the Fairy books and I hope that there are many more that will come to life in the months and years to come. Making a Fairy doll holds special responsibility, as it is an essence that needs to be captured, more than a like-ness.
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The dress of the Fairy was sewn from two layers of very fine cotton batiste. A pink one and a blue one. This way it has the almost irridenscent quality of the lilac in the picture of the book. The long wrap around her shoulder is also cotton batiste.
Curly, wavy hair was a special requisite that the little girls mom made to me me. I remember my mother many years ago knitting up some left over wool, washing and drying it and then unraveling it to create textured wool to decorate a dwarf's face with it. I love the springiness this creates in the doll's hair, yet it looks different from the boucle yarn often used for curly hair.
The Fairy is 52 cm / 20" tall
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.