Jul 14

Jul 14 New Wee Babies: Summer Gardener Edition

Rejoice! We now have a new edition of the popular Wee Baby bunny doll pattern: the Summer of 2023 Gardeners. I am so pleased with their sweet faces, pudgy bellies and cute outfits. Let me introduce you to all six of them.

Waldorf inspired Wee Baby bunny doll, by Fig and Me.

This time all the bunnies are girls and of course they love wearing their little sun hats. There is a link at bottom to see each one with their name and price and all that fun stuff.

When I came back from my holidays in Portugal, after attending the European Waldorf Doll Retreat in Belgium, I was feeling the need to sit down and work very quietly on smallish dolls.

Normally when I come back home from a trip I always turn to the Wee Babies. Making multiples of a small doll seems to be the right thing for my hands, after I have been away from the sewing machine and the bundles of wool.

This time was no different but I was very achy to crochet, so I got to work on a design for a cloche hat that would allow their ears to pop out.

After a couple of prototypes that helped me figure out the best placement for the ear holes and the right amount of expansion for the brim, we were off to the races! Six little hats came out of my hands the first week home.

Then it was time to select the right repurposed sweater for their bodies. I was feeling very mellow after my jaunty walks in the Portuguese medieval streets, so I went for this mocha colour virgin wool sweater.

I sewed and stuffed with wool, I turned feet up and made six little heads with different colours of skin tones.

I embroidered 6 pairs of little eyes with tender eyelashes, gave them all a little pout and blushed them with red beeswax.

And then I felt they needed pinafores! So we chose this pretty off-white cotton fabric with the tiniest green crosses. I wasn’t in the mood to wrestle tiny straps through the sewing machine so I spent a beautiful evening hand-sewing these 4 mm straps for their dresses.

As I was making the chest part of their pinafore I had the vision of a tiny little carrot. I wondered if I was going to embroider six little carrots…because though I love embroidery and look for any opportunity to add it to my dolls’ clothing, I was feeling like the aprons wouldn’t look right with embroidery.

I was right! Wool felt appliqué was the thing that made them look the best (in my humble opinion). I got to cutting the tiniest carrots and even tiniest green tops and there I was, making ultra tiny stitches adding them to their dresses.

The Wee Babies are the only style of doll that I like to make in multiples. While I have made groups of dolls all at the same time before, I reserve the madness for very occasional adventures.

So if you want to bring one of these “limited edition” 🤓 Wee Babies into your home, they will be ready for your shopping bag this July 16th at Noon Toronto time. You can find them all here: Fig and Me Online Shop.

Thank you so much for taking a peek. I hope you find them as amusing and tender as I do and keep your eyes peeled because I am already thinking on what to make for September! I think there will be foxes but you will find a completely new design as well 🤭. I just need to work on a couple of prototypes before I can go on fully making them.

Next week I will come back to show you my pride and joy: Catalina Cordelia, a 23” tall doll, completely needle felted over an armature and with a cute story to boot!