For years I wanted to make rag dolls, out of cotton or linen. Year in, year out, I thought sewing a rag doll to life but felt afraid. What did I know of doll making? Nothing; and why did I want to make dolls? I didn’t know. Finally I couldn’t be disobedient to myself another minute and began to sketch, cut and sew.

You know it’s kind of funny because that’s how it was with my daughter too. I felt her around me, at different times, for years, waiting to come through. It made me unbearably sad to think I’d never meet her so one day I gave her one chance—to come through—and she took it. I became pregnant at 45. That’s how I know my daughter has impeccable timing and will never miss an opportunity. She’s proved that from conception. :0)

Since I’ve started making rag dolls in Ottawa I feel new rag doll-beings trying to come through too. I never know what the rag doll will look like until I begin. Oddly enough though when I try to plan or design the doll, she doesn’t come in all the way. Something stalls the process and I often abandon it from lack of…I don’t know what. I’ve many dolls at different stages of development. But that’s how it is with me.

My daughter, like Gal Pal Blugirl and all the rest of those in the Dolliverse are not really of my own making, but of life’s longing for itself; for although they come through me they belong not to me—they belong to themselves each with their own unique genius to share—and it’s up to the Person who gives them a forever home to discover and share in what that might be. A more precious gift I can’t think of.

wanda