Feb 12

Feb 12 Honour, the last custom doll of 2023

This little lady has been late to appear in ye olde pages of the doll making blog, nonetheless here she is in her full glory. Truth be told, I was waiting for Valentine’s Day and the red madness, since I totally missed the boat on the Christmas ride.

Waldorf inspired fiber art doll, by Fig and Me.

As you can gather from the title of this post, she was the last custom doll I made in 2023. She was sent home in a jiffy hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa sitting pretty under the Christmas tree.

She made it home just in the nick of time, I believe she didn’t get to see Santa but she did get to spend quiet time with her new Mom, who is very happy to have welcomed her under her care.

You see, Honour is made to resemble in doll form another girl by the same name. The one and only daughter of this kind woman.

Her daughter Honour was born on Christmas Day many moons ago, blessing her family beyond compare, so it was only too fitting that this doll was born around the same time.

I made a doll for little Honour almost 13 years ago and now I've made a doll for her mom, inspired by her.

In the process of making this wool version of Honour, her Mom shared the many achievements of her daughter, hoping to inspire my hands and put some of that magic in this little doll.

Can you imagine how proud I am of having seen Honour all grown up, albeit through the screen and to know what a beautiful woman she has become?

One of the many blessings of being a doll maker, is the friendships I have gathered and the many children I have seen grow up from playing with little dolls I made for them, to full-fledged college graduates living their adult lives now.

I hope one day I can make dolls for their children too! If one can dream of being a dollmaker for that long...

Working on this little doll was such a weird, beautiful, creative abandon experience for me. As I was working on her I could still remember so well the moments when I worked on the doll for young Honour. Her mom is a nurse that works in intensive care with babies and children and I had to make certain medical intervention details on her doll.

I remember who I was at that time, where I lived, the fabrics I used, how I worked on the patterns of her clothes and how much I loved the experience and challenge of making that doll.

As the years went by, every spring I would get a photo of Honour, with her doll, under the magnolia tree. I have them all in my treasure chest, and just like that, a treasure they’ve become in my life and in my memories.

I told this wool-and-cotton Honour all about that. I told her about my girls at that age, about Honour now all grown up, about her new Mom and the home she was heading into.

Working on her sort of brought me back to an age in my life where I was still making so many of my dolls for children to play with. To a time where I was growing a lot in skills and was understanding and getting clarity about the creative path.

I was incredibly grateful that her Mom trusted me all those years ago to create a doll for her daughter, and even more grateful now, that she gave me the opportunity to create this doll under Honour’s lucky star.

We tried to mix both of what Honour liked as a little girl and who she is now: always putting her hair up in a scrunchie!

Since Honour wears her hair in several shades I mixed different colours of camel weft, I also gave her the characteristic nose freckles and the little dimple by her mouth. Her signature cornflower blue eyes ad she was there. Little Honour in figlette form.

It was very fun to work on her clothes, with a bit more of a modern look due to the fabrics and style we chose for her.

I talked a lot about the making of her clothes and why I made this or that decision in the December vlog on Patreon. People are always asking me how I find x fabrics, what I use, etc. so I put a lot of that process on that vlog, if you are interested in sewing doll clothing you might want to check that one out.

Honour, the doll, is already home of course and one day another doll in my studio will remind me of her. That’s what happens with being a doll maker. One doll ties you to another, in a forever chain of creative output. Then one doll in the future brings you back to the exact moment in time where you sat down to write a blog about another doll, years in the past.

It’s a magical, mind-blowing, exciting process and I am wholeheartedly here for it.

All thanks to the generosity of people like Honour’s Mom, who have chosen to support the work of these two hands and who have been following my doll making evolution for years now.

It has been a wild ride with them by my side.

Thank you so much my darling, I hope one day we get to make dolls together!