Thursday, October 6, 2011

Wagon Dolls

Recently, in a blog thread discussion, I mentioned wagon dolls.  A friend wondered what they were.  So. . .  here they are.  Although the picture is not the best and is taken from an old snapshot, maybe you can see what these cute homespun dolls look like. They were originally designed by Vicki Lauritsen out of Geraldton, Western Australia in 1994.  She fashioned them after reading a library book about children's toys on the wagon trains. Thus the name!
These are lovely soft dolls for playtime. They stand about 22 inches tall. I made several of these for my grandkids some years ago. They are made of muslin with an embroidered face and the best part about them is their hair. It's strips of fabric and buttons. The strips are cut with pinking shears. The fabric strips make for a floppy head of hair and the most adorable part of the doll, in my opinion. (Although it takes a lot of time to finish this part.) Clothing is a simple dress of homespun fabric with cute little striped bloomers. 

I originally found this pattern in an international quilt shop series book called The Calico House by Joanna Brazler.  It features the creative talents of a group of women who work and frequent The Calico House quilt shop in Perth Australia.  I have made several of the projects in this book and highly recommend the book (if you can find it--it was printed by That Patchwork Place in Bothell Washington, 1995).

1 comment:

Memories for Life said...

These are cute :) I think my mom still has one :)