Sunday, February 05, 2006

The Story Behind My "Elmers Little Boy" Doll Pattern

One of my first posts was "The Story Behind Elmers Little Boy." I thought it would be fun to post it again as it's such a nice story. So, here's the post:

In thinking about what to write next for my blog I thought it might be a good idea to tell the story behind some of the dolls I have created. I'd like to begin with the story behind Elmers Little Boy. So here goes..... My sister-in-laws parents who are in their 80's recently had a yardsale because they were moving into a much smaller house. Elmer (my sister-in-laws father) had an old plastic kewpie doll that had previously belonged to his deceased sister that he had kept I think in his toolbox (I might have that wrong).

In any event, he had held on to this doll for over many, many years. The only problem with the doll was that it had no clothes. He was going to throw it away but decided instead to give it to me. I was touched as I got the sense that this doll had a lot of sentimental value for him. In any event, I decided to take it home and design some clothes for it. I wanted an early american little boy look so I decided on pantaloons, a vest, shirt, and scully cap. Since I had already designed the clothes for his kewpie I decided to design a cloth doll as well. A little while later I took the plastic kewpie doll (with his new clothes) back to Elmer. Elmer was thrilled. It touched my heart to see how happy he was with my gift. Elmer's kewpie doll now sits proudly on the top of his bureau (I think).

I named my cloth pattern Elmer's Little Boy after Elmer's plastic kewpie doll. Elmers Original Kewpie is shown above and my Elmers Little Boy cloth version is shown below. The clothes for both dolls were made from some of Elmer's old clothes that I had gotten from his yard sale. I hope you like both dolls.

My Version - Elmers Little Boy.

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