The Olive Sparrow Child — Emmi

Emmi is a 35cm tall girl, my favourite smaller doll size and a newly developed body pattern. She is sweetly plump, and so adorable to hold. 

Unfortunately, these pictured don't do her justice, they make her face look flat and her lips too big. It is sad that I do not have better pictures of her. She was one of my favourite Olive Sparrow children I made for the Winterfair at the Toronto Waldorf school, and she went to a wonderful new home together with Kerri, whom you will get to meet in the next profile.  

 

Emmi-whole35cm

Emmi's shoes are sewn from an up-cycled angora sweater and the ties of her shoes are hand-made cords from sock wool.

Emmi-face-35cm

I hand-dyed the scarf she is wearing in a graduated rainbow pattern. Her hat is a soft alpaca wool with a fun pattern that matches the pattern on her tunic.

Emmi-whole-no-hat-35cm

Emmi is one of those little girls that is just sweetness personified, yet she is also not shy to tell you what she thinks, a perfect friend.

 

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 whispy 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.