Little House on the Prairie Book and a Craft

This week's literature based craft was inspired by the book "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

 

We loved the part in the book describing the sister's dolls.  We didn't have a corncob to make Laura's doll "Susan" but we did have yarn scraps for Mary's rag doll "Nettie".

 

There are some really great tutorials on how to make a yarn doll so we won't go into too many details here. We used Wee Folk Art as a reference to make our dolls.

 

 

Step 1 Start by cutting four - 4" strands of yarn and setting them aside.

Step 2 Next wrap the yarn around a book.  For a small book we wrapped 30 times and for a bigger book 60 .

Step 3 Take one of the 4" strands cut at the beginning and thread it through the yarn at the  top of the book and tie a knot.

Step 4 Snip the yarn at the bottom of the book straight across.

 

Step 5 Tie another knot an inch from the top to form the head, 

Step 6 Separate the yarn into 3 groups of 4 strands on both sides of the doll and braid (arms).  

Step 7 Neaten up the uneven pieces on the arms and along the bottom with scissors.

Step 8 Name your doll!

 

The dolls are so soft and adorable we couldn't stop at one...

 

 

We made little yarn ghosts to hang in the carport at Halloween...

 

Yarn dolls ornaments to hang from the Christmas tree!

 

Next we plan to use scraps of fabric from our Heritage Afghan to make a braided rug just like the pioneer's.

 

Have fun making your dolls and feel free to share your project photo's on our Facebook Page.  We would sure love to see them!