Fancy Nancy

For some reason I have been thinking about making dolls recently. I go through these phases of wanting to make small cloth dolls and then their clothes. I think this time it all started when my friend told me about a life size paper mache fairy that she had made a few years ago. She just got a job teaching art in a K-12 school and she told me that she took it with her to keep in her classroom to show the students what can be done with paper mache. I wish I could be in her classroom. I'm sure I would learn alot.

After that, I started searching the Internet and found a cute pattern for a cloth doll. Several in fact, but I thought this one looked fairly easy, and it was. The pattern is called Fancy Nancy and can be found here. Here is a picture:

And then, here's my version:


She has a little bit of a wrinkled face, which I found out later can be remedied by using t-shirting stretch type fabric. This was not mentioned in the directions, so how was I to know? In fact, come to think of it, there were several things not mentioned in the pattern, but I figured them out. She's not perfect, but I think she's really cute.

A couple of days ago I was looking through my photo album that has quilts that I have taken pictures of from the quilt show that I've attended in Nashville and found this picture.

Her name is Hypatia, the Library Fairie. Since I work in a library I thought this was really intriguing. Her story is below:

Hypatia, the Library Fairie

Barbara Chojnacki
Westerly, Rhode Island


A library may seem a strange place for a fairie. You generally find them out of doors, among the wildflowers, flitting alongside a monarch butterfly or sipping dew from a buttercup. Dark paneling and musty-dusty old books hardly seem a congenial environment for fairies. Yet, that is where you will find Hypatia, if you look hard enough. She is rather unobtrusive for a fairie. Her hair is the color of well-worn leather, and her wings mimic vintage feathered endpapers. Her wine-colored dress blends into dark corners. She speaks barely above a whisper.

Yes, Hypatia is a Library Fairie. If you have ever frequented a library you have encountered her kind. Oh, yes, you have. Hypatia may have been the one who welcomed you, a timid pre-schooler, into story hour. She held your hand while you were led into a world of enchantment. So you DO remember. That was before you were told by well-meaning adults that fairies, like Santa Claus, did not exist. She’s still there, just as she’s always been.

Hypatia brings poetry to lovers, romance to the lonely and forlorn, and adventure to those without the health or wherewithal to seek it themselves. She finds the just the perfect recipe and saves the day for a nervous hostess. She helps those in sorrow find solace in the words of those who have gone before.

Sometimes we literally need a knock on the head, and Hypatia is not above doing just that. Have you ever walked down the stacks and had just the right book, at the right time, fall on you? Hypatia again. You might hear her muffled giggle as you bend to pick it up.

Hypatia is ageless. Her capacity for hard work has not dimmed - if anything, it has gotten stronger. There are so many books, more books all the time, books of words that can heal or hurt, words that can unite or divide. Hypatia realizes these words must be shared, that ignorance is not a stop along the pathway to peace and understanding. Thus, Hypatia chooses stacks and shelves over flowers and fresh air.