The Dolls House – looking back

Sunday marked the final day of The Dolls House exhibition. Yesterday and today the dolls are being packed up in their boxes, ready for transport back to their owners. It was a great exhibition and we’re sad to see it go. But tomorrow is a new day (as is today) and we’re looking forward to our next exhibition, Circles of Life – Mandala Magic by Karen Scott and her students.

But today, I wanted to share with you an interesting adventure that happened during the Dolls House.

A young girl, around 11 or so, came in with her grandmother and her younger sister, clutching a bag to her chest. She said that she’d found a doll with a broken foot in her neighbour’s Hard Rubbish pile on the front lawn, and her neighbour said she could have it. The girl named her new doll Chelsea, but nobody knew anything about the doll, and this young girl was wondering if we could help her identify it.

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The Dolls House – interview with Colin Robinson

I’ve just come across the Dandenong Leader’s online article about the Doll’s House exhibition (which you can read here: http://dandenong-leader.whereilive.com.au/lifestyle/story/video-doll-exhibition-at-heritage-hill/) and in it, it has a video of Colin Robinson, the man behind most of the dolls we exhibited here. It’s a bit late for the exhibition itself, but now you can relive the experience forever!

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Behind the scenes of The Doll’s House

Yesterday was the last day of the doll exhibition and today was the big day that Ken and Barbie had been waiting for. Now their work is over, they finally were able to enjoy the garden with the children at Heritage Hill.

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School Holiday workshop – Doll Stories

Today at Heritage Hill we had Rhonda and some of her little friends drop by to tell us some Doll Stories.

Here is Teddy getting ready to read us a story. He might need some help with the big words, but that’s ok, we had a number of clever readers here on hand to help out.

 

Rhonda read us several lovely stories about dolls, teddys and other toys.

 

Then we went for an adventure in the garden. Rhonda gave us a task to find things that started with particular letters. I got the letter “F”

 

We looked high and low for things that started with our letter. I think these girls might have found something!

Ahh! I can see something starting with the letter “F”. Can you?

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School Holiday workshop – Fabric Dolls

It’s a cold and rainy day here in Dandenong today, but that only seems to make the creative grow (or is that flow?)

Today we were sewing fabric dolls and there were some beautiful dolls created!

 
First, you need to cut out your dolls. Arms, legs, clothing, hair all needs to be considered and created.

 

Then you need to sew your doll together. Some people had sewn before, some only learned today. But everyone agreed that it was actually pretty simple when you get down to it.

 

Some people worked together with mums and grandmas to create their dolls.

 

This was the final result. Beautiful dolls, some with flowing hair and elegant dresses, some with short hair and day clothing, all colours of the rainbow. All the dolls looked really happy, and so did all the participants!

 

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School Holiday workshop – Worry Dolls

The September school holidays got off to a flying (and colourful) start today with our Worry Dolls workshop.

The Worry Dolls tradition comes from Guatemala where children whisper their worries at night to small, colourful dolls. They then place these dolls under their pillows, believing that the dolls will hold the worries for the children, so the children can get a good night’s sleep.

These little dolls have a big important job to do!

So today, participants in the Worry Doll workshop made their own Worry Dolls to share their worries with. Check out some of the dolls created!

This Worry Doll was one of the first ones finished. It blends in nicely with it’s maker’s dress. Lots of kids made the Worry Dolls in colours they were wearing.

 

Yarn was flying about all over the place. Everyone made super colourful Worry Dolls. There was a Richmond supporter Worry Doll, several disco Worry Dolls and a superhero Worry Doll or two.

 

Everyone made at least 2 dolls each. A few made up to 4!

 

If you look carefully, you’ll see in this picture 2 Worrd Dolls and one Worry Mermaid.

In the end there were over 45 Worry Dolls created to take home. Phew! That’s a weight off our mind…

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Cloth Doll Workshop

On Saturday, October 17, Kerry Markham of the Australian Cloth Dolls Association held an all day Cloth Doll workshop in Laurel Lodge. Cloth dolls are usually highly worked, very solid artistic dolls made to look at not to play with. It can take weeks to create a single doll and workshops can go for several days. Kerrie proimised us that this doll wouldn’t take as long as that! 

Kerrie was lovely and very knowledgable, the conversation was pleasant, the learning curve not too steep and at the end of the day we all had a beautiful elf doll to take home. 

Have a look at some of the photos from the day:

These were two elves Kerrie made previously from the pattern she was teaching us

 

One of our participants laying out her pattern pieces.

 

Kerrie , left, explains a technique to two of our participants.

 

An elf cut and sewn but yet to be stuffed.

 

Here Kerrie uses a gel pen to create details in the little elf’s face.

 

Four of the finished elves having a chat

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