The Olive Sparrow

Keagan - 48 cm tall and so sweet

Keagan was the second last custom doll for 2012. Instead of nattering on about him and all the adventures he will have, I'll just let the pictures of him speak...

 

 

I took the following picture to show some of the textures in Keagans' outfit. When I design a doll, I always ensure that a child will have many different types of natural textures to feel. Here we have very soft felted angora wool, merino wool, soft but a bit less so, linen fabric, buttons, boiled wool, the twists of the shoe cord. The blue of the shoes is fabric taken from woolen tights the that "J" (who will be living with Keagan) wore to bits when she was smaller. 

Keagan will also be living as the brother to a doll I made a few years back. His hair is custom dyed and matches the other doll's hair in tone, although not in texture, as she has straight hair. 

I love making boy dolls so much. They can fly and are full of beans!

A Quick Review

The past 10 days have been a flurry of activities and lugging of the portable Olive Sparrow shop. I also got to meet with so many of you that have come and visited me at the fairs. 

Here is a bit of a recap to share with you.

Friday and Saturday (Nov. 16 and 17) I had a large booth at the Arts and Crafts Fair of the Toronto Waldorf School in Richmond Hill. On the way there, the front wheels of our beloved, yet ancient mini-van started smoking. Taking frequent breaks to let them cool down, I was determined to make it to the fair - which I did - just. I was so lucky to have my wonderful felting buddy Jan helped me with the set-up. Car-car (don't you name your car?) stayed there overnight, while Manon of Shoe Babou gave me a ride downtown and back the next day.

Here a quick look of the booth:

This was my third year at the show and I feel blessed to have seen many of my repeat clients again. I also got to chat with many new clients. 

On the Sunday after the show I took Huxley to see "the Man in red on his sled", and a visit to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). Since we didn't score even one candy cane, we treated ourselves to cake in their eatery that always makes me think of Switzerland (it's something about the layout, the colours and general feel). This time of the year is a challenge to my mothering role - my soul is torn between my duties on all fronts - as a mother, a creator of Olive Sparrow goods, a gardner, a housewife, an artist, the maker of all the baked cookies with gift clients with, taking care of me. Yet despite the challenges, I love the flurry of activities and even giggle at the state of the insides of our car - packed to the roof with show booth items.

Monday to Thursday this past week was spend sewing like a mad-woman at home and getting some painting done at the studio. I was able to finish up 3 more Olive Sparrow Children (they had still needed faces, hair and clothes) and sew shoes for all the larger dolls that didn't find their forever families at the TWS show. 

On Friday just before 2 pm I got on the road to Guelph (about 100 km's east of Toronto). I was able to visit my pregnant friend Catherine and her family there for half an hour before heading to the Trillium Waldorf School for the Cranberry market.

It was so relaxing to set up there, as I had given myself ample time so I didn't need to stress and do my usual heart-pounding, adrenaline pumping spiel of racing to be ready for opening time. There was a piano in my vendor room and a group of children played piano and the recorder for me. As a thank you, I let them have a rock fight. You read right. This year I am selling wet-felted rocks, originally intended to be used for nature tables, play scapes and decoration. Through interaction with the kids I realized they had a hoot trowing "rocks" at each other in play. What fun - and there are still some bags of the rocks left for my next fairs. The children commented on how interesting it felt to hold these textile stones in their hands. 

The booth set-up is different at each fair I attend - In Guelph, I had rented two tables, which is really what is needed to justly present all my goods. Luckily Catherine (not my pregnant friend, but a super-sweet and wonderful co-ordinator of the fair) was able to get me that much space.

Here some close-ups of each table:

 

Because I had some extra time before opening, here a few (pardon me for the blurriness) doll close-ups:

Alice 38 cm - available

Elsie - 38 cm - available

The Cranberry fair closed at 11pm. At 11:40 pm, my goodies where packed up and I drove back home to Toronto. After getting into bed at 1:15 am, I rose again at 4:30 am and was on the road at 5 am to arrive in Kingston (about 250 km's west of Toronto) by 8:30 am for set-up at the Mullberry Waldorf school for their Winterfair. (I did have a 15 minute nap at one of the rest-stops and arrived full of energy in perfect timing to walk my stuff up to the 3rd floor of a lovely old and large school house. The building reminded me strongly of my own primary school in Switzerland - must have had something to do with the size of the class rooms and the spacing of the stair steps.

Even though my attendance was confirmed only a week ago, I was still able to rent two table spaces. Lois and Patricia that coordinated the fair were absolutely lovely to work with. 

All the people I met at the school were strangers to me, yet I was made to feel completely at home and welcome by everyone that came to look and/or purchase my goodies.

 

As promised in my earlier post, I wanted to show you the 20 cm Olive Sparrow Child that I will be giving away in a contest I am holding at all my shows this season. I know that my dolls are not attainable for everybody that visits and gives me such lovely words for my work - I wanted to give something back.

Here is quick image of "Mimi". 

The contest will close on December 16. 2012, the day of my last show this year.

If you would like to put your name into the draw for a chance to win her,  visit me at one of the shows I will be doing over the next two weeks and fill out a ballot:

November 30 (Friday 6 pm - 9 pm ) - Westdale Children's School - Hamilton 

December 2 (Sunday 10 am - 4 pm) - Waldorf Academy (formerly Allan Howard Waldorf School) - Toronto

December 8 (Saturday 11 am - 3 pm) - London Waldorf School - London

December 16 (Sunday noon - 5 pm) - Rima and Friends - Wise Daughters Craft Market - Toronto (Junction)

Off to bed for me - I am planning on sewing more doll clothes and hopefully finish a couple more dolls until Friday.

 

Show Pictures

The shows I did a couple of weekends ago went well. It was lovely to meet so many new people and exhibit my work. I "hired' our son to be my helper for the day on Sunday. He was amazing! I still remember when I was pregnant that I just thought that our son would come along to the shows, play quietly behind the tent, get used to the life of doing shows and start helping with little things. As I told him the day of the show, he was not that kind of a child when he was younger. Whereas I have seen the children of others be the perfect assistants and quiet companions, my son was always too active (although I did have him along at an art exhibition when he was a mere 6 weeks old and that was a wonderful experience). Now, at eight, he can help me unload the car, set-up the tent, watch the booth for a few minutes, and also, especially at a Waldorf fair, go about doing activities that he likes to do and enjoy him self too. 

Here are a few pictures of my show tent to share with you that come from far and away. 

Welcome to the lair of the Olive Sparrow (give me a shout-out in the comments if you spot the little birdy - he always travels with me). 

Fairy tote bags - sized just perfectly for children to use as their lunch bag, a carry-all to take ballet slippers to class, a toybag to bring just a few precious things along on an outing or for momma to use as a small handbag.

Playsilks - look soon in my etsy store for an update in colours and sizes.

 

Hats and pants for three sizes of dolls. I love seeing all the clothes laid out like this and ready to be combined with tops to every doll-mommas own tastes and desires. 

Dresses, tunics and skirts. I am already excited and inspired for the new clothes ideas in my mind.  

The doll table - with Olive Sparrow Children (11 in all, although one was hiding in this picture) - the plan is that early next week the dolls and I will go on a photo outing - there are a few lovely places I have in mind to take photographs. All in preparation to have them listed within the next 2 weeks. They are all very excited to find their future families. In this picture you can also see wet-felted flowers, hand-dyed dress-up crowns both for children and their dolls, as well as Floppy dolls, nature-table fairies and Mother Earth (from the previous post). 

Shows are a wonderful way to share my work and to inspire moms that make their own dolls for their children. I also enjoy setting up the displays and seeing the expressions in the face of children when they respond to a doll. It's always a tad sad too though, to see how some of the parents really love to get the doll for their child, yet simply can't afford it. That is also why I offer doll-making workshops. I had planned to hold one this coming weekend, but it seems that after the summer vacation will be a better time for it - summer is to be outside and enjoy the weather and time with our families - I love the coming of September and the return back to hand-work and preparing for the holiday markets. 

PS: If you would like to receive advance notice of the dolls becoming available for sale, please send me a message to: [email protected] and I will add you to my early bird list.                   

 

 

The Olive Sparrow Child - Baby Dolly

Aa dear client requested if I could possibly make a small baby doll in a sling for her daughter's birthday. Although the deadline was very tight, timing worked out wonderful to create this little as of yet unnamed baby. 

She is about 9.5" or 25 cm tall.

Cuddling in her sling.

Wearing teeny-tiny diapers that close with little snaps. 

The sling fits a 44cm Olive Sparrow doll with the baby snuggly cuddled around mami-doll.

Fluffy baby hair.

Wearing her itty-bitty hat.

Smilling and waiting for her pickup at the studio. 

 

My client and I discussed that they baby should be somewhat unisex in appearance, so that her daughter could pretend to either have a baby-girls or a baby-boy. I think that was successful, as both my husband and my son couldn't right out say which gender the baby is. 

While working on the baby, I also started another small doll. I just picked out the colours for her clothes and hope to work on her later today - now, I'm going to let Huxley create some bean bags on the sewing machine - a first for us and we're both very excited. 

____________________________________________

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 finished seams and some are fully reversible.

 

 

 

Inspiration

"She who dies with the most
Fabric, Yarn, Art Supplies, Tools, etc. wins!"

Have you heard about this competition? I'm doing really well (giggle). Stacks of collected fabrics, baskets of yarns, tools to help me with virtually any task, 10 drawers full of thread in any colour imaginable; are just what I have in my home studio (we won't discuss my painting studio). Having lived a life filled with creation has left its mark. In addition, I have often been gifted with wonderful treasures from friends and neighbours. Then there was the 3 years that I worked at a major fabric store chain as an assistant buyer and could purchase fabric for my personal use at cost prices. I know that even if I live another 60 years and am blessed with working hands, eyes and grey matter, I will not be able to use up everything. I do not need to ever go shopping for supplies again, except for specifics, such as doll skin, doll-hair, eco stuffing wool. 

Yet inspiration can be such a fickle companion. There are moments when placing a hand on a piece of fabric a fully-formed image of a creation springs to mind. Other times it is an image in a children's book, or a conversation with a friend. Sometimes though, what is really needed is to fondle materials that are not yet mine - aka a visit to a yarn or fabric store. Mostly on an errand where I need just a little bit of something specific to compliement something I am working on - inspiration has a habit of jumping on me. 

I ran such an errand this week to Romni Wools, the largest wool store that I have seen. And, there is the basement! A crowded space with stacks and stacks of discontinued and coned yarns/wools. It is a heaven for my doll making needs. What started with the need to pick up a ball of specific hair yarn ended up with quite an inspirational haul of goodies.

Now there has been knitting for the past two days, instead of stuffing body parts - hats in glorious colours. For the 35 cm dolls that will be forthcoming.

I got a half cone of the lilac chenille - it is made with viscose and wool - super soft and so pretty. It is a designer yarn from Italy to boot.

When I design my dolls, I sometimes start with the knitted hat and then build an outfit around it. For the chenille hat and the one mohair yarn in the back, I know that some will be for fairy dolls. With wings. The red and green yarns I picked up because I knew they would match some of the fabrics I have in my stash.

I am a very tactile person - I think many of us are, especially our children. When I make an Olive Sparrow Child, I make sure that each one has a wide variety of textures for a child to feel and play with. Teaching our brains to recognize how different each material feels through our fingers connects us more intimately to our world. I would also think it makes us more affectionate and compassionate human beings. We have adapted the song "Four Hugs a day" to "Ten hugs a day". (Lyrics), and include our pets in there too (except the fish, they don't seem to feel the same way.

Talking about tactility - I'd better take my hands off the keyboard now and get creating.

Have a wonderful day!

 

The Olive Sparrow Child - Suzy and Baby-Jo - Available

(Suzy and Baby-Jo are available for adoption - they will be listed in Etsy in the coming days - if you are interested in her, just send me an e-mail and I can give you the details).

Suzy is my newly designed doll. She measures 55cm or about 21" tall - so she is a large doll. She sits very well on her own, and sitting is something Suzy loves to do, because she also has a baby - Baby Josephine, nicknamed Baby-Jo. 

I am headed to the Waldorf Academy to set up my booth, so I will leave you with a few quick pictures of Suzy and Baby-Jo. (There will also be 8 other Olive Sparrow Children available, as well as lovely 6" and 4" bendable nature table dolls). I have also made more clothes since the TWS show 2 weeks ago and now have an extended selection of dresses, tops, pants and hats for 35 , 44-48, and 55cm dolls available.

 

 

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. 

The Olive Sparrow Child -- Charlene

Charlene is the first of my dolls that I have sold through my etsy store. My client asked for a couple of additional pieces of clothing, which was a lot of fun to create.

Gotta still keep the typing minimal, so here are pictures of Charlene (31cm, 12"):

Charlene wears a green satin fabric tunic (up-cycled from some Isaac Misrahi sheets). I've free-hand machine embroidered a sweet heart onto it, as well as a bit of decoration at the neckline. Her pants are a very finely striped linen (from an up-cycled shirt). Her hat is knitted from a wonderfully soft alpaca wool. 

She is quite a small doll with a lovely dark mocha skin tone. Her hair is hand-dyed by me and I also created a bit of curliness in it, so she has waves and highlights - a very stylish combination. 

 

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. 

TheOliveSparrow Etsy Shop - Great Opening Announcement

It is with great pleasure that I am (finally..giggle) opening my Olive Sparrow Etsy Shop.

The grand opening will take place on: Sunday, March 6th, 2011 at 9 am. 

You fill find listed 4 Olive Sparrow Dolls, Playsilks and a few children's Blankets.

Olive Sparrow Child -- Princess Starlight

The Princess was one of my most favourite custom order I created for Christmas 2010. She went to a little girl in whose house there are already a few Olive Sparrow children, and this little girl had just one wish, a Princess. 

So without further ado, may I present:

Princess Starlight:

In full formal regalia. 

 

Sometimes a Princess has to think a lot about how to help her land and how to make sure that the fairies can have all the space they need in the forest, yet also let the people have enough room to grow food.

Wonderful cape!

Without the cape, yet still formal, perfect for ballroom dances in the castle.

 

For more casual events, yet when it she still needs to wear a crown, the gold part can be removed.

As well as her star skirt, it can also be taken off when she walks through her lands to help her people.

 

Here a quick look at her wardrobe, accessories. The star-skirt can also be worn as a cape. Finding a gorgeous silk-embroidery East Indian outfit worked out perfect for the cape. The crown is made from felt I hand-dyed and sewed as a traditional Waldorf Birthday crown. (Crowns for Children - scroll down a bit to see the child-sized versions of these).

At the last 50% off sale at our local Chez VV (our fancy name for Value Village), I purchased some other gorgeous outfits and am working on a Princes' outfit, and have ideas for fairies and other magical Olive Sparrow children.

Picture of the Princess Starlight concludes my review of sold and custom dolls made in 2010. Today I will focus on getting my Etsy Store - TheOliveSparrow ready for it's grand opening. Stay tuned for the exact date which I will post in a bit (within the next day).

 

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. 

Custom Order - Clothes

The time leading up to Christmas 2010 had me very busy with a selection of custom orders. The next few posts will document these. 

First up, a clothes order for a customer that purchased 3 Dolls from me in 2009 and wished for extra sets of outfits. There where some additional outfits in addition to the once here that I didn't document. 

Please forgive me for the less than stellar quality of the photographs here. I had my camera stolen and had to resort back to my old Canon Powershot, a great camera for outdoor pictures, but just terrible for indoor shots.. please bear with me.. all my creations this year will be photographed with my lovely Nikon D3100 DSLR.

Hand-knitted hats, a boys outfit, skirts, dresses, blouses, cardigans for 1 boy doll 45cm, 1 girl doll 45cm and one smaller 31 cm girl doll.

Detail of boy's outfit, linen shirt, pocketed trousers and felted vest.

Very traditional dress for 45 - 52 cm doll with linen facing at the hem and linen belted waist. 

Same dress from behind.

Drop-waist dress with linen trim and felted wool cardigan with ruffled edge and crochet neck band. 

A large portion of the fabrics are from up-cycled clothing, others are from my vast stash of cloth. The client came to my house to choose fabrics she liked and I created to clothes around them. 

All seams are sewn with french seams for a beautiful finish and durability. The felted items are sewn with a zig-zag stitch to allow for stretch when the dolls are being dressed by little hands. 

 

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. 

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. 

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). 

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.  

Could there be anything more fun than ridding a bunny?

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.

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. 

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

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.   

Olive Sparrow Child Profile: Kalle

Kalle is Silas's (scroll down to see him) cousin. He now lives together with Lina and Mia and a wonderful family that has four children. Kalle is 45 cm tall and a very sweet and attentive brother.  

He is also very stylish and loves to stay warm with a felted cashmere scarf and shoes.

His linen shirt is sewn with french seams and has two snaps to hold it closed (easy on little hands). His vest is an up-cycled wool sweater and looks very hip. His pants are made from a beautiful cotton-linen mix.

   As you can see, he is Lina and Mia's older brother. 

Here are the three of them. To see detail pictures of Lina and Mia scroll down on that page. 

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.

Olive Sparrow Child Profile: Amanda

The new year is already in full swing in these parts. Before I am again way out of sync with its documentation, here are images of custom Olive Sparrow Children that I created for holiday gifts. 

First in line and very eager for you to get to know her is Amanda, also known as Amy. 

Amy is 45 cm tall and a very smart, inquisitive little girl. 

 

She loves butterflies and even has a butterfly hair clip that she proudly wears in her hand-dyed hair. 

 

Her pinafore is reversible (flowers on one side, dots and stripes on the other side) and she wears a lilac, sateen tunic underneath, as well as purple capri pants. The wool for her hat was dyed with kool-aid and has a fun knot on top. 

Her booties are made from the softest cotton fleece fabric and she likes to wear them on the large side so that she can wriggle her toes. She told me that she her biggest dream is to one day go with her new big sister J. to France. I think she already looks the part of a little french girl. 

<sup><sub>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.</sub></sup>

 

This is why I've been hiding...

My Olive Sparrow Booth at the Toronto Waldorf School Candlelight Vendor's Fair.

Selling my blankets, hand-dyed felt crowns, festive banners, playsilks and dolls. 

A detail of the Olive Sparrow Children:

 

There are eight children, of which six have found a home, the other two will be in put into my Etsy shop within a weeks time. 

Here is your chance to meet them one-by-one.

Bella will be Ayla's new mom. Ayla is about 44 cm tall. Bella's mom adopted Ayla before the TWS show, but Ayla came with us anyway, as she didn't want to miss out meeting all the people at the fair and having fun with her friends.

Her tunic is sewn with french seams from a recycled linen-mix mens' shirt, a bias neck closure and an alpaca-silk drawstring, from the same yarn as her knit hat. Her capri pants are made from a vintage pillow cover. 

Ayla is a beautiful layed-back girl, full of spunk, yet a very gentle soul.

Kayla has also been adopted. She is about 35 cm tall.

Kayla's hair is hand-dyed merino yarn from Switzerland, extremely soft and beautiful to style. It is a crochet-cap and hand-knotted wig, which allows for many different styles to be created.

Her over-dress is fully reversible, and suitable for both winter and summer wear. She currently wears it over a handkerchief linen shift and lilac bloomers (but, please don't share that information with anybody else...giggle). She wears booties made our of up-cycled felted wool.

Below you can see her with loose open hair and the darker side of the outfit. The dress is based on a pinafore pattern that crosses over in the back, so a child does not have to worry about buttons or other closures. 

Kiran's Grandmother adopted Lars and he will stay with her until Christmas, when he will move in with Kiran. Lars is 33 cm tall. His hair is crochet with the loop technique that Joy's Waldorfdolls describes in her wig-making instruction booklet.

Lars' hoodie is sewn from a T-shirt Huxley wore a couple of summers ago, he also wears linen-cotton pants and leather shoes. He was the first of the children to be adopted at the fair.

Here he is sitting with Reka (who is still available for adoption). Reka is the smallest of the children, measuring a mere 21 cm in height. Her price is $125 CDN. 

She wears a silk hat with a daisy button, and an embroidered, tailored light green linen dress. Her hair is hand-dyed merino wool in an open style. Under her dress you can see a little bit of her floral, cotton capri pants. Her crochet shoes are the same silk as her hat and close with a daisy button.

Reka would be a great doll for a slightly older child, as she is a bit harder to dress.

Lina is 43 cm tall and has a body that is on the plump side (my own pattern). She gives the best hugs. Lina has been adopted together with Mia (you will learn about her next). 

Lina wears a tunic, a cotton batiste and sequin skirt over linen capri pants, as well as a hand-knit hat. Her hair is crochet with the lovely technique that a few of my admired german doll-makers have shared with me (links to their dolls to follow in one of my next posts, in which I would like to share my learning curve about the dolls). Lina's shoes are also made from up-cyled felted woolen sweaters.

Lina with Mia and Silas

Sweet Mia, she is 26 cm tall and has been adopted to the same home as Lina, and I will also make another boy (a brother to Silas, that will look very similar to him).

Mia wears a tunic made from the same fabric as my favourite linen shirt is made out of, as well as white handkerchief linen pants and a reversible pinafore (a pattern I drafted, based on a pinafore I wear for spinning). Her hair is also a crochet mohair type wig.

Here you can clearly see the little bit of embroidery I added to the pinafore. Mia is wearing it with the lilac side out to show you how it matches her kerchief.

Silas, my big boy is 44 cm tall and such a wonderful big brother. He has been adopted as well. 

Silas is dressed up in his finest linen shirt, striped linen pants (made from an up-cycled men's shirt), and his warm wollen felted west. His kerchief adds a little bit of extra spunk to him, don't you agree? His shoes are suede and look very dapper. His hat has earflaps not to keep him warm, but to make him look cool, because, well, as we all know, big brothers have a reputation to protect. He has been adopted for a little girl that is quite a tomboy, so I'm sure he is set for a wonderful life of adventures. 

Last, but by now means least, here we have Pia, the other girl that is still available for adoption to a new home. Pia measures about 43 cm in height and costs $195 CDN.

For her hair I combined the brushed mohair technique with the loop-crochet technique, which gives her a beautifully unruly head of hair that she likes to tame with barrets and little pig tails. Pia is quite a girly-girl and wears a dress over her capri pants. To make sure she stays nice and clean when playing with the other children she wears the lilac side of her pinafore out, yet when she gets ready for an outing, she likes to wear it's white linen side. 

Pia's shoes are made from an up-cycled purple wool sweater and keep her feet cozy even in cold weather. 

Here you can see a detail of her dress showing the french seam.

Pia, Kayla and Ayla pretending that the craddle is a boat on hight seas.

This concludes the introduction of my first collection of Olive Sparrow Children. I was overwhelmed by all the beautiful encouraging compliments I received at the fair and feel blessed to being able to make three custom dolls for some very lucky children this Christmas. I currently still have room for one more custom order to be completed by December 20th as well. 

I hope you have a beautiful week ahead, leading up to our festive season.