The inspiration for this doll comes from a few places. First is from Little V, who wanted a doll that she could change the diaper on, looked like a newborn, was little and was heavy-ish. The other source was from Miss Polly- a teacher at my sons Waldorf School. Miss Polly noticed that quite a few children in her class were taking the sand/bean bags and cuddling them like babies – she asked me if I could make essentially a sack with a head with a hat on it. So, I mixed the two together and came up with this…
So, first I drew up a rough pattern.
Then, I traced it out. Because the doll is quite heavy, I put a layer of muslin, then tricot, then tricot, then muslin – so it’s nice and sturdy. I triple stitched the seams.
I attached it to the head – I have to figure out another way to do this more neatly. The body is filled with wild rice (it’s what I had around!) – but next time I’m using quartz sand – then I’m going to try quinoa. There is a bit of wool in there too.
I will revamp this pattern at least a dozen times before I think it’s ready for sale – sharpen up my technique and rework the pattern. I’m going to run the sleeper through Constance to perfect the pattern (it is what she does, I’m not so great at pattern drafting).
I worked on her for about 4 hours today, it’s always like this for the first doll. Be sure to stay tuned for these babies in my shop in the new year.
This is really interesting (to me!) – Weighted dolls are used therapeutically in Europe with children who have ADD and autism. It’s thought that the physical Weight of them and the act of lugging them around grounds and calms the children. Jasper yesterday was kissing and carrying around a very, very large sweet potato. Ha! I should just put a head on a potato and sell those. Nutty kid!!
Subsequent dolls will have noses on them – totally forgot to put one on her!
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