Doll Clothes Camp 2024

By Lyndsey Bentham

Doll Clothes Camp 2024 is in the books! What a beautiful week we had. My campers surprised me every day with their unflinching creativity, boldness and gumption. Even, and especially, the beginners. It is so inspiring to see how unimpeded they are at this age by fear or other mental limitations, such as doing things the “right” way. Some of the sweetest projects were applique doll quilts - playing with the textures of felt, cottons, and even batting to create a striking composition.

The inspiration for this class came from the doll clothes my own grandmother made for my American Girl dolls as a kid. Interestingly, sewing for dolls has been a way for kids to learn sewing throughout history. It’s a great way to practice constructing different garments on a small scale. On day one, I brought a few special pieces my grandmother had made into class, and we did some “detective work” as to how she constructed these tiny garments. One student remarked, “It looks so good because it looks like nobody made it. You can’t see the stitches.” 

There’s a lot in that statement, I think, about the magic of the invisible. How you learn what to look for as a sewist. How the experts hide their construction methods, and tuck everything in neatly, so that all you can see is a finished product - the illusion that it was always that way. The illusion that someone didn’t make that with their human hands. How you realize that robots can’t sew, at least not yet. How perfection is a certain kind of hiding. 

Personally, I’m learning to love the evidence. I’m getting curious about where the impulse for perfection comes from in myself. The quilts with raw edges, lopsided stitches, loose threads - the work of children, learning - in bright colors that don’t blend, leaving evidence of themselves - to me, that’s poetry. A different brand of poetry than work that is “perfect.”  

I’m so proud of these kids and all they were able to accomplish in just five days. They made tops, pants, dresses, pillows, bags, quilts - they were so prolific that we ended our week with a fashion show video for the parents! It was so fun teaching this first hand and planting seeds to empower these young sewists for years to come.