by Ardeana Hamlin
of The Weekly Staff
MILFORD — When Wendy Hamilton of Milford buys material for the Native American cloth dolls she makes, she doesn’t think in terms of yards of fabric and spools of thread. She thinks in terms of bolts of cloth and cones of thread.
Since August, when Hamilton and her work were featured in the Folklife tent at the American Folk Festival in Bangor, she has sewn 40 dozen of the dolls, and estimates her total for the year will be 52 dozen — that’s 624 dolls. That’s a lot of dolls to bring into being, but Hamilton has distilled the doll making process down to manageable segments.
“I’ll sit down and cut all the bodies from a bolt of cloth,” she said. After that comes sessions of sewing, stuffing the bodies with fiberfill, cutting out the clothing, sewing ribbons to the clothing, stitching the clothing, dressing the dolls and adding embellishments, depending on the type of doll she is making. Embellishments might include shell and bead necklaces or bell necklaces. The last steps in creating her dolls is adding yarn hair and braiding it, adding a headband and painting the doll’s faces.
Hamilton is carrying on a family and a cultural tradition she learned from her Aunt Ruth Francis, a member of the Penobscot Nation. “Aunt Ruth created the dolls in the 1980s and made them for 20 years. I use the patterns she used and do it the way she taught me,” Hamilton said. Hamilton first learned how to make the dolls in 2005. Ruth Francis died in 2013
“Making dolls is time I spend with Aunt Ruth,” Hamilton said. As she sews on her Kenmore machine, she hears in her mind the lessons her aunt taught her about making the dolls.
Like her aunt, and using her patterns, Hamilton makes bell dolls, babies, ribbon boy and girl, traditional boy and girl dressed in suede cloth tunic and pants, traditional shell boy and girl, calico shawl and grandmother dolls.
“I’m playing around the idea of making a grandfather doll,” Hamilton said. She also is studying images of Plains, Navajo and other Native American people to learn about the details of their ceremonial regalia, with an aim to incorporate similar details into the dolls she might make in the future.
“It’s so intricate and beautiful — beautiful beadwork,” Hamilton said of ceremonial regalia. “Being able to sit and bring all this together means a lot to me,” she said. “I’d like to make a hoop dancer doll someday. That would be a fun doll to make.”
But there are two dolls her aunt made that Hamilton will never make. Those are the Molly Molasses Doll and the Penobscot Man doll. “Those were Aunt Ruth’s first creations,” Hamilton said, “and she did not want [the tradition of making] those dolls carried on.” Her aunt also made concho, corn, grass dancer and Micmac man and woman dolls.
The family doll making tradition is being carried on by Brandi, Hamilton’s daughter — though with a modern twist. Brandi, who with her two sisters have helped Hamilton with some aspects of dollmaking since they were girls, recently put her own spin on dollmaking. She made a whale out of a dish cloth. Then she made Anna and Elsa — based on characters in “Frozen” — from scratch, drawing her own patterns and using upcycled fabric she found at area thrift shops such as The Salvation Army store, Good Will and Helping Hands. Her current project is a lumberjack made from an upcycled flannel shirt.
Hamilton, however, uses all new materials. Her crafting room is stacked with totes containing fabric and yarn, and equipped with many divided drawers containing beads in a rainbow of colors.
In addition to dollmaking, Hamilton also enjoys quilting (she has a log cabin star quilt in progress), making beaded earrings and barrettes, making dream catchers, crocheting and needlepoint. She also makes ribbon dresses and shirts for all ages.
The prices of her dolls range from $5 for a baby to $20 for a grandmother doll, approximately 12 inches tall. Hamilton’s dolls are available for purchase at Little Bear Crafts on Facebook. For information, email Hamilton at littlbearcrafts@gmail.com.