the world’s gone topsy turvy

oh i love topsy turvy dolls. a long dress, or clever hats hide another faces and bodies, to make an all-in-one doll.
in march i was looking around for patterns for these kinds of dolls. i did have *intentions* however, they have remained unrealized. i really like the traditional freaky-deaky little red riding hood, with grandma/wolf on the other end. the wolf head hides under grandma’s nightcap, which is turned around. how fun is that?

recently there was a crocheted topsy turvy doll shown at whip-up, and it’s telling that kathreen posted it under ‘extreme’… they are weird! yes, they actually have split personalities! on the same day, 29 may- victorian-looking topsy-turvy dolls appeared at treefall design. i just found them this evening, wow. well done! and you can even purchase this pretty pair in her shop. and only 10days earlier another was posted in flickr: an angel/devil. coincidence? i think so.

quick solution: hack ‘em together

if one can’t bear all the sewing, the HGTV site gives a method which includes: “2 soft dolls of the same size “.. which you
ghoulishly graft together like some frankenstein’s monster.

1. Cut the legs off each doll, making sure that you don’t cut open the bottom of the doll.
2. With the faces on the same side, push bottoms of body sections together, matching side seams, and with heavy-duty thread, whip-stitch securely around the “waist.” The bodies should be firm enough that they don’t bend in the middle. For extra stiffness, you may want to sew twice around.

mixed race

another strange peice of trivia saying black slaves in the US were not allowed to play with dolls which had images of black people, so they would have to turn the doll too the ‘white’ side when overseer was around. i tried to google-confirm this. – one article says many of the topsy turvy dolls were of mixed race though it’s unclear to me what the intention or meaning of this was.

“While some historians believe that the dolls were cleverly concealed toys for slave children who may not have been allowed to play with black dolls (which were illegal during apartheid), others like Jones believe that they were given to white children to serve as maids to the other dolls. Either way, they reflected the striking contrasts between the two roles and the disparities in the treatment each received.

Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, a professor with Emory University, points out that the apartheid ban on black dolls signaled the political and moral potency of the doll in its time. She asks, “Why would you ban a doll if it wasn’t so powerful?”, suggesting that the oppositional characters helped children to learn their own roles in society (Siek, 2003).”

oo… i’d love to have a look at this book. 0672521571: How to Make Upside-Down Dolls

i’m adding this to my delicious links for this category:

http://del.icio.us/heather/topsyturvy

i’m not allowed to start anything new until at least one more monkey has a face, and one little doll has hair.

but this is now up on the top of my list.