I will update this over time, but I thought this would be a good first post for this new blog!
A lot of you have probably already heard me explain these things, but I don't know that I've ever actually written them out.
How long do your dolls take to make?
I'm going to give an unnecessarily long answer here.
I always freeze when someone asks me this question, because I'm honestly not sure. I have genuinely tried to track this a few times, so I have a rough estimate, but doll-making is one of those things that truly induces such a cosmic flow-state for me that I lose track of time.
I would say the average time for a standard doll, though is between 4 and 7 hours. This is obviously longer if I am knitting garments or drafting and troubleshooting a completely new piece of clothing, but overall, most designs fit within that timeframe.
Humpties are much simpler and smaller, so depending on the complexity can be finished in under an hour, but not always!
What inspires your dolls/how did you start doing this?
The simple answer to what inspires my dolls the most visually is probably Animal Crossing. Plain and simple. I love the proportions of the characters from that and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. And I have always had a knack for color and texture. Creating a tangible item that has so much spirit and story feels like magic.
But on an existential level, this craft is a love letter to my younger self. I have a vivid memory of sitting on my bed as a school-age girl feeling such immense sadness that one day I would either not care about or have time for the things I enjoyed so much at that time in my life. My Grand Champion horses, my dolls and stuffies, my lego sets, the color and design of my bedroom painstakingly brought to life by my parents and the parts of my walls that were sprinkled with words and art I had painted myself. It wasn't the actual physical items I was attached to, but the playfulness. The simplicity and unseriousness of it. The way certain colors scratched my brain and the curiosity of how a thing was made and that every thing I owned was dreamed up in the mind of a maker like me.
That has stuck with me throughout my life. This is where my slogan "A little forehead kiss for your inner child" comes from. Permission to go ahead and enjoy the thing.
More coming soon... (feel free to ask a question too!)
