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>> [Background music] I'm going to demonstrate how to make a wish doll.
There are lots of different names for these; Some people talk about them in terms
of African ancestor dolls or totem dolls; you might even refer to them as voodoo dolls,
but there are lots of different names.
In order to make these dolls, the types of supplies
that you'll need are actually pretty few.
You'll need a square piece of material, and it can be any kind of material,
as small as 8 by 8 inches up to 12 by 12 inches, and it can be as colorful as you'd like it,
and you might just use a scrap of material that you have at home.
You'll need some yarn; you can either use one type of yarn or a variety of types of yarns
of different textures, and different sizes, and different colors.
But if you only have one type of yarn, that's also okay.
You'll need a pair of scissors and some things to decorate or embellish with.
Examples would be buttons that you might have on hand, and most people do have some buttons
at home; you can use shells from the beach like these cowrie shells; here's a variety of beads
that you can use; here's actually a little hand-shaped charm;
here's a little spoon-shaped charm; so, a variety of those things.
Some of these ribbon flowers can be nice; these are little faces that were created out of clay
from molds, and you can buy these little molds at Michaels, and you usually get six or seven,
or even more little tiny faces in one mold; and either wire or a needle and thread
to attach your beads or your buttons, can be attached with either wire,
there's wire on this little one right here around the waist, or threads.
You'll also need a piece of paper and a pen for writing a message to place inside of the head.
How you would begin is by just taking a sheet of paper, and on that sheet of paper writing a wish
that you might have, or a dream, or a prayer, or an intention that you have for yourself;
something that would be important to you and inspirational to you,
you would write down on the piece of paper.
And then once you do that, you're simply going to take the piece
of paper and squeeze it into a ball.
One of the things that I discovered, too, though, was that people often make these
and they forget what they wrote on their wishes, so some people think that that's just fine;
other people wish that they would have kept a copy of it;
you might want to keep a copy of what you write.
But then you'll take your piece of cloth, and it can be any type of cloth.
A variety of different colors can be used; whatever you have on hand can be used;
you don't need to buy anything special for this, and fold that in half,
and right in the center is where you're going to place the little ball,
and that's going to form your little head.
And you would just put your, put that little head in there, and I already have one wrapped,
and I've just wrapped the yarn a couple of times around to form
that little head, and then tie a knot.
And the next thing that you'll do is spread the cloth out; you're going to take your scissors
and cut some slits on both sides; those basically form the arms.
So, where this was a whole piece of fabric like this, you've now cut a little slit
in on each side, so you've got a bottom and three appendages.
And you're going to move the yarn to the edge of what will ultimately be the hand,
and just begin wrapping the yarn around the hand to form an arm, and you'll wrap all the way.
You can leave it loose or tight, depending on how large you want the arm to be
and how flexible you'd like it to be, right up to where it ends.
And then you'll wrap it around the neck again a couple of times, and pull the other arm out,
and do the same thing on the other arm.
And it will end up actually looking like this.
So now you've got both arms and you're back up at the neck.
The next step that you'll do is you're going to form a waist,
so you'll move down the doll a little bit, maybe an inch or so depending on how big it is,
and form a waist a few times, so just wrap that around a few times, and then you're going
to do a crisscross across the chest, so you'll come up this way and around the back and then
up the front like this so you've got a crisscross, and then you can fill
in the torso, again by just wrapping.
And you might need to crisscross once you get back up to the chest a couple
of times to fill in all the holes.
And then the next thing that you'll do is you'll come back down the torso and you're going to --
this will naturally kind of form into two legs, and you're going to come behind on each side,
basically forming a little crotch section, so now you have two legs,
and just like with the hands, you'll move down to the bottom
and begin wrapping and forming each leg.
You can actually switch and use more than one color of yarn or more than one type of yarn;
you don't have to keep using the same type of yarn.
And then once you finish that leg, you'll come
and wrap the other leg starting at the bottom also.
I know some people when they're going through chemotherapy, they develop some neuropathy
in their fingers, so this process can be a little more difficult,
but it might be good exercise for you to do this with your hands,
so feel free to just take your time.
And then I'm going to wrap around the body a couple more times,
just filling in as many of the white spaces as I can.
And then you'll just cut some yarn and find a little spot back here that you can pick up
and loop that yarn through and tie a knot in it...
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...to kind of seal that.
And you can either tuck that in somewhere, or cut it off.
So here's your little doll as it is.
I always encourage people to give some thought to decoration, and how they might want
to decorate it, and if it has any impact on the message that they've written inside of the head.
So as you think about what you said on your message and what your wish is or your dream
or your prayer, how might the things that you have to decorate this doll fit with the theme
that you've created with what you wrote on your piece of paper.
You might wonder what it is that you can do with this once it's finished,
and there are a variety of things that you can consider.
For people who have spaces in their homes that they consider sacred or special,
some people make these and keep them there in those special places.
Some people give them as gifts to people that they love and care
about because the message that's inside of the head may be a message
that they're sending out to someone else.
They can be kept in places where you see them frequently as a reminder to you
of whatever the message is inside of the head, and for some of you that place might be
on the kitchen windowsill where you spend a lot of time, so you can give some thought also
to what you'd like to do with it once you've finished it.
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