For some rather odd reason I have been knitting golliwogs. I suppose in these days of political correctness I should call them gollidolls. I have knitted four of them and have to give them lovely curly hair. There are a lot of ways to do it but none of them work particularly well. I tried to follow the instructions for knitting the hair but failed miserably. Someone suggested I use a crochet hook to pull the pieces of wool through. This was not successful at all as it pulled the filling out at the same time. Finally after fiddling around for about an hour I finally I managed to sew on the hair thread by thread. It is my version of the Advanced Hair Studio for men. To say that it is labour intensive is and understatement. It took me seven and a half hours to sew the hair onto something the size of a small ball. It is bigger than a golf ball and not quite as big as a tennis ball. Seven and a half hours. It is a good job I have plenty of time on my hands. Let's face it, it is the best excuse to sit on my fat bum for hours and hours. I don't have to feel guilty about being lazy.
I have three more gollies to go and then I have four or five dolls that will need hair as well. At least they will not be black. I think my problems today can be blamed on trying to see what I was doing when I couldn't see the wool properly. I am planning on using shocking pink hair for one of the baby dolls and a rather eccentric blue for the boy doll. I also made about twelve or thirteen little dolls that thankfully do not need hair. I only have to stuff them and embroider faces and buttons etcetera. Hopefully I will be finished doing these dolls by the time that the babies I am doing them for reach puberty.
I might get a table at the Grenville Centre's night market in November and try to sell the dolls there. I really don't know why I torture myself by making something that takes forever to do and that no-one wants to pay for. The left over dolls will be going to the Lyell McEwin Hospital to be used as trauma dolls. Mostly the kids get trauma teddies but I am sure they will like my little creatures. The warmer weather is coming so I won't be doing any more knitting this year.
Now I am back at the beginning. Are golliwogs politically incorrect? They are dear little black dolls with fuzzy hair and surely not impinging on African-American sensibilities. I certainly don't want to insult anyone so if calling them Gollidolls is more to people's taste I am fine with that. I had a home made golliwog when I was a little girl. Evidently I wanted the Golli that some little kid had and made such a fuss that a lady called Mum in to her house where she sewed me a funny little doll. She sewed on a little face and some red hair around the top and I loved it better than any doll that I was given afterwards. I still had it up until the child of my loins came along, however, it was moth eaten and not suitable for her. One of the Navy wives got her Mum to knit a gorgeous one for her. She still has it but it is stored in a box so could be moth eaten itself by now. I love golliwogs, always did and always will politically correct or not.
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