When my sister and I were little, I used to make clothes for our dolls.
We had an old armoire in our bedroom and my mom took out the doors and we made it into a dolls house.
I made furniture for the dolls from scraps and things I found. An old cigar box was decorated and turned into a bed, a shoe box became the wardrobe- with real doors that opened and closed. A candy tin was a perfect dining table.
I made clothes for the dolls. My mother taught me how to sew and I used to spend hours drawing pictures of fancy clothes for the dolls.
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After a long career as a fashion/costume designer, I finally found my passion on a cold winter evening, at my sons' Waldorf-education kindergarten.
Parents were invited for a doll making extravaganza. We all sat on tiny wooden chairs and made little star/bunting dolls for our children. It was a lovely, fun evening and it could have well ended at that but then, someone pulld a waldorf doll out of nowhere and I took one look and fell head over heels.

I spent the next couple of weeks glued to my computer, frantically trying to figure out how to make these dolls. I ordered every book I could find and bit my fingernails with anticipation.
But by the time the books arrived, I was already making dolls.

I love making dolls. It is a long process and my fingers constantly ache from the pulling and tugging and sewing, but I love to see how people react to my dolls. I am constantly thinking about new dolls, searching for better techniques, different material, but in the end, the beauty in making waldorf dolls is the simplicity of it all.

A bit of natural wool roving, cotton thread, embroidery floss and a bit of mohair wool, and voila! A doll emerges.

I work at home, in a lovely, spacious studio adjacent to the children's playroom, which is where quite a few of the dolls/toys end up, smudged in chocolate and bananas, after enduring some, err, affection from my 6 years old daughter, Sophia.
She likes to 'test-drive' my dolls and if I am not carefull, I will end up with nothing to sell. :-)
My 8 year old son, Luca, enjoys helping mom operate heavy machinery. He comes into the studio and we have little chats about my work and the machines, shipping stuff, packing stuff. He is into scissors nowadays, so he likes to see me cut fabric and help me make Thank you cards.

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