Playing with (tiny) clothes

How a rare impulse for play brought about our most-cherished family heirloom.

My Mom recently gifted her cherished Barbie doll to my daughter. The doll alone is special – her case says she was produced in 1961 – but when you see the handmade wardrobe she came with, your jaw will drop. All of the tiny knitted and sewn clothes were made by my great-grandmother, and most of them were designed by her as well.

The poor doll’s feet are permanently shaped for high heels, and her bust is mid-century conical, but she withstood the test of sixty years and now gets to be part of childhood play once again. My daughter is making up for the doll’s quiet years by including her in multiple pretend worlds replete with costume changes, all thanks to the creativity of her great-great grandmother. It’s rather breathtaking to consider the fiber that connects my daughter with her great-great grandmother, which spans many lifetimes and transcends death itself.

My Gram, whose mother made these clothes, recalls that her mother delighted in designing, making, and even playing with the doll and her wardrobe. Apparently, my great-grandmother didn’t have much opportunity to play as a child; her hands were necessary for farm work. I love that her sewing and knitting skills allowed her to rediscover her playful side as an adult. They are, after all, practical crafts, intended to clothe and keep us warm, but their fullest expression goes beyond that, entering the realm of art and creative play.

As makers, we can get caught up in our to-do lists. Making becomes a chore, or simply a practical act of clothing our bodies or the bodies of our families. Even if it once held a creative place in our hearts, after a while, it can be relegated to the chore category, even if we don’t intend for it to evolve in that direction.

There is nothing practical about this doll’s wardrobe – it’s just pure play, both in the creation and the outcome. It’s art for the sake of bringing a little beauty and fun into the world. We all need that kind of artistic practice in our lives. Something that we do for the fun of it. Embroidery can be like that. Designing little doll clothes or a scrap quilt can be like that. And sewing garments can be like that, too, if we approach it from a mindset of sewing for self-care. It isn’t something we should do. It’s something that we must do, to enter into that creative flow or meditative state, for our own well-being.

Even if the prospect intimidates you, try playing around with making a small design change on a pattern you’re planning to make. Hacking a pattern instantly elevates the project to the realm of “play.”

And don’t forget to play dress up with the clothes you’ve already made, just as you would if you were a seven year-old dressing up her dolls. It is an absolutely essential part of keeping your sewing hobby delight-driven rather than getting bogged down in the “shoulds” and the to-do list overwhelm. Playing dress up helps you find new and fun ways to wear what you’ve already made, which keeps that “to-sew” list to a minimum and takes the pressure off to make, make, make. Pressure and creativity can sometimes act like oil and water.

My great-grandmother had the right idea, to make doll clothes for her granddaughter. I wonder if, as she held that fiber in her hands, she imagined her great-great granddaughter playing with the clothes she would make. What a creative rush she would have felt.