The Olive Sparrow Children: Holly and Lina

It is natural that people fall in love with an Olive Sparrow child that is posted on line or that they meet in person at a show. This is what happened with Lina. H, a fellow waldorf mom was taken with Mia when she met her at the TWS fair. Lina already had a home at that point, so I agreed to make a sister, very much looking alike. 

Here is the result. This shows very clearly that how each doll has it's own character and personality, even as I attempt to make them look very much alike. Yes, their skin tone is different, mainly because I do try to not make them look identical.

Pia-holly-1 

The clothes are sewn and knitted from the same fabrics.

Pia-holly-2

 

Same colour eyes and lips, a similar, yet different expression, just like in people.

Pia-holly-portrait 

Holly grew to be a little bigger than Lena, which I find very endearing. Different shoe soles. I love the purple soles, made for dancing, don't you think? Holly is about one inch taller than Lina. I guess they are fraternal twins, not identical ones.
Pia-holly-3

Goodbye Hug!
Pia-holly-hug

Easy it is not to let the Olive Sparrow children go on their way. Maybe it is a blessing that I don't have a daughter, as I would probably create way too many of these for her..

This post sums up the custom dolls created for Christmas 2009. Currently my dear old Bernina is in the shop to get fixed and I have to also finally get to wedding pictures — organizing, preparing thank you cards and getting prints. There are a few new Olive Sparrow Children already in the works and I will also show you one that was created for a birthday girl a week ago, so more pictures are to come.

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.