Bl4—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, November 3,1984
to
BY BARBARA RADER
Staff Correspondent
ADAMSVILLE The foun
dation of this housewife’s sewing
talent wag laid during five years in
a 4-H sewing club.
When she was a 4-H’er, it was
her mother who insisted that she
join the club and stick with it. Now
her husband encourages Barbara
Saulsbery to sew. Last year he
bought her a new sewing machine.
Barbara has been sewing more
than ever during the last seven
years, making nearly all of her
daughter’s clothing and most of the
shirts that her husband, Jim, and
son, Paul, wear. She also sews
most of her own clothing.
In the last three years, Barbara
has added dolls to her list of sewing
projects. Creating Raggedy Ann
and Raggedy Andy dolls for her
niece and nephew were her first
attempts at doll making. Then,
last year, she stumbled onto a
large handsewn doll that caught
her eye. She began to search for
Attaching the dolls' heads is the only hand sewii
in the project. Barbara says her knees come in
this part of the process.
Three of Barbara’s vinyl faced "Becky" dolls line up on the couch. The
24 inches tali and feature bloomers and bonnets.
Seamstress uses skills
create country-style dolls
the pattern, which she eventually
found in a magazine ad. Since
finding this pattern, she has
created about 80 dolls, most of
them since June of this year.
Twenty of those dolls had em
broidered faces and sculptured
hands which required much
creative time. Barbara made the
others with vinyl heads and hands.
Both types of dolls measure
about 24 inches in height and
feature big feet and bloomers. The
embroidered doll wears a short
dress, stripped stockings and
dustmop bonnet, and has rug yarn
hair, large blue, green or brown
eyes, and freckles.
The vinyl dolls wear a longer
version of the same dress that is
complemented with a pinafore and
a bonnet.
Barbara prefers to use flan
nelette instead of muslin because it
helps the rug yarn hair lay better
and does not ravel like muslin.
More importantly, though, it is a
softer material to cuddle up with.
The dress and hat for the dolls
require about one yard of fabric;
the pinafore, bloomers and bonnet
trim take another yard. Barbara
uses upholstery velvet for the
shoes and approximately 12 ounces
of good stuffing for the body. One
yard of flannelette yields an
average of three bodies, she said.
“The stuff mg is real important,”
Barbara says. “Especially on the
doll whose face is embroidered.
“The tucking that sculptures the
face needs to have a good sub
stance beneath it so the nose,
cheeks, chin and eyes will develop
into the real look.”
Machine stitching is used on the
entire doll with the exception of the
heads and hands which must be
hand stitched. Barbara says it
takes her about six to seven hours
to complete one doll.
She saves time by constructing
between four and six dolls at a
tune, taking one hour to construct
each body, dress and pinafore. The
hats and bloomers take about 45
minutes to make, she said. The
embroidery takes about another
hour.
Barbara has made a few boy
dolls, but orders for girl dolls are
much more plentiful. “They (boy
dolls) wear a checked shirt and
blue jeans and are real cute,”
Barbara said with a smile.
Leafing through a new craft
magazine, Barbara found a pat
tern for a country boy and girl that
attracted her attention. “I’m going
to find out where I can obtain the
heads so I may try making them
up,” Barbara said.
“He’s wearing bib overalls and a
checkered shirt that gives him a
real little farmer look, and I can
add a cap that I already have a
pattern for that would make him
look even cuter.”
Once the dolls are completed
they find their way to new homes.
Most of them are purchased by
women who want to add a touch of
country to their homes. Many end
up on small rocking chairs,
perhaps by the fireplace. Although
some of the dolls do go to children
to play with, most are used for
decoration only.
Barbara’s mother has helped
many of the dolls find their new
homes. She recently retired from
Greenville Hospital where many of
the employees have fallen in love
with Barbara’s dolls. Other
customers come from word-of
mouth advertising.
Barbara says she attended the
Summerfest, an arts and crafts
exhibit held at Conneaut Lake this
summer, where she sold a few of
her dolls.
ing involved
handy with
“I also have dolls that have gone
to Paris, France, Spain, Canada,
and my niece carried one on the
plane when she went home to
Barbara Saulsbery dresses her “country charmer" doll
named Becky in a lavender dress.
California,” she continued.
If the doll is specially ordered,
the customer can select the color of
the outfit, and on the embroidered
dolls, the eye and hair color.
Since beginning her doll-making
venture, Barbara has less time for
her family’s sewing. Sewing to
meet her family’s needs has helped
in the budget, Barbara said. And
she added that a little over a mile
from her home is a “Salvage
Shop” where she buys 90 percent of
her materials and sewing supplies.
Even after constructing an outfit
Barbara keeps all the leftover
pieces to make quilts over the
winter so no material goes to
waste. “Watching remnant bins
are also another savings,” Bar-
are about
Barbara's youngest daughter Jamie has lots of smiles as
she holds two of her favorite dolls her mom made for her.
bara adds. She purchases all her
eyelet and ribbon at a bulk rate to
save even more dollars.
Her oldest daughter, Laura, a
sophomore at the University of
Pittsburgh, didn’t have a store
bought dress until the fifth grade,
and six-year-old Jamie, a first
grader, has yet to receive a ready
made dress from her parents,
although relatives have supplied
her with a few.
“I hung out clothes the other day
on the line and out of 17 shirts, 12 of
them I had made,” Barbara says.
Just imagine what the
clothesline would look like if
Barbara washed all the bonnets,
shoes, bloomers, pinafores and
dresses for the 80 dolls she has
made.