Saturday, April 17, 2010

Laura Ingalls Wilder

In third grade at our elementary school, the students need to read a biography, write a report and then either dress up as that person or make a doll out of a 2 litre bottle of that person and then give an oral report to the class. Macy has been really enjoying the Little House books and since I am a big fan too, I had Laura Ingalls Wilder's biography and so Macy read that for her assignment.
We used a Styrofoam ball for the head and covered it with fabric that I had gathered together in the middle to make a nose. I realized while we were trying to cover the Styrofoam ball that we should have used knit fabric. Oh well, when it's Eleanor's turn, we'll do better. I guess we just left the ball white for Ben's project (His report was on Paul Revere). So anyway, that's why the fabric is wrinkly. Wouldn't be a problem if we were making Laura when she was 90 years old. We made a dress out of brown calico (with red flowers) and added an apron and a bonnet. We stuffed the shoulders and sleeves of the dress with leftover scraps of yarn from her hair and then sewed her hands into the ends of the sleeves to keep everything in. I wanted to make a little Charlotte doll for her to hold, but then Macy reminded me that this was her project not mine.
As you can see, Laura is not wearing her bonnet on her head, because we all know that she much preferred to wear it hanging by the straps on her back. That's a good thing because even though Macy sewed the majority of this together, I made the pattern based on one I found on the web and the bonnet ended up a bit too small for Laura's head. Laura wouldn't be complete without her braids and red hair ribbons! Even though I helped with pattern making and a few other things (like working the hot glue gun), Macy did the majority of the cutting out, sewing, etc. so she'll be able to enter this in the fair this summer.