Johnny Appleseed

Johnny Appleseed

I'm lucky to be the child of very crafty parents. I was always encouraged to develop crafty hobbies and engage in the creation of special things. Mom's newest passion is fabric doll making.She started doing it several years ago. The doll above is "Johnny Appleseed" one of her very first dolls. For anyone that might be interested, Mom does have a group of dollmakers that she gets together with regularly. If you're in southeastern Michigan and want to know more about them, let me know and I'll get you in touch.

Dad took a bunch of pictures of her creations. Because I think they are all wonderful and each one has a story, I decided that rather than post a whole bunch of pictures at once, I would devote a blog post to each one. For this post, I asked mom some questions. Here are my questions and her answers:

Why did you make him?

Making art dolls started out as a lark – a different new crafty experience. I joined a class at a semi-local quilt shop that was teaching Julie McCollough’s Razzamatazz doll pattern. Johnny is an adaptation of that pattern. Although Johnny doesn’t exhibit many different skills because he was my first birth, what I really discovered was in making art dolls I could used nearly every bit of sewing, painting, and varied needle expertise that I had ever acquired over the years.

What you were trying to do with him?

Over and over you will hear doll-makers say we’re just having fun. That was the second discovery; that it was OK to make something that had no real practical purpose.

What you like most about him?

That he makes me smile. His hair was in place when I set his eyes. I got them a bit higher on his face than they should have been and so he ended up with this sort of surprised innocent look. It was as if he woke up and said “Wow! This is a great place and I have a need to do something to keep it that way.” That’s when he really became Johnny Appleseed. That’s what happens with dolls – they eventually tell you what how they really want to look and dress.

Any special things you did to make it better or more interesting?

Once a doll tells you what it really wants, there’s no end to the embellishments and backdrops you can make for it. I’ve graduated a long way from Johnny, but you can see some of the first attempts at add-ons with his “leather” boots and apple pack. I think it was dad’s idea to use a ¼ cup measure for his “pot”.

Like knitters, or maybe way beyond knitters, doll makers collect a stash of fabrics. I say way beyond, because rarely more than a fat-quarter is needed in any one construction. So it’s incredibly easy to compile a stash of hundreds of fat-quarters that you “might use someday”. And also like knitters, eventually the collection expands into the very expensive with acquisitions of silks and velvets, hand wovens, hand dyed, beaded, leather and antique pieces.

Chuckle. She thinks she can out stash us, eh? Well, actually, she can. And she has. She's got the better part of a room filled with fabric and sewing goodies. And not only does she get to stash fabrics, bus she also stashes yarn, roving, buttons, beads and all sorts of decorative notions.