Making dolls and friends

at the European Waldorf Doll Retreat (EWDOR) 2025

Dear Reader,

I’m back home now and ready to tell you all about my adventures last week at EWDOR, the European Waldorf Doll-making Retreat. For a week I stayed on a campsite in Ommen, the Netherlands, right next to the retreat venue; the beautiful old house of Landgoed Het Laer.

I went to the retreat to learn, to be inspired, to rest, to have fun, and most of all to catch up with my doll-making friends from all over the world. We are a small but welcoming and supportive community and it was so good to spend time with people who get just as excited about dolls, materials, process, characters and the childhood world as I do.

My first two days were spent in a workshop with skilled maker and teacher Ildiko, of Ildila Handmade Dolls, making a weighted baby doll. You might think that sewing dolls is all gentle work, but shaping the wool can be really hard work on your hands; pulling, felting, rolling and tying as tight as possible to ensure the doll’s form and features remain firm with time and love.

Here is Ildiko adjust the amount of wool stuffing in a neck, in our sunny and spacious classroom. I took my doll head out to the garden terrace to sit quietly and concentrate on stitching the eyes as it’s a crucial part of the character creation and needs to be just right. And I was so happy with the result.

Since many of us were staying on the campsite, we go together there in the evenings to chat and share news and skills. All of the dolls came out, as did the knitting and sewing, the wine, tea and coffee. This is part of the community-building time that is so valuable to us all. As a small group spread around the world, we don’t manage to see each other face-to-face very often and it’s so much fun to catch up.

Thank you so much Sabine of Bienchen Und Bluemchen and Nathasja of @smillahandmade for hosting the evening meet-ups in your luxury cabin!

Of course, not only the doll-makers but also the dolls got together to chat too. Here are dolls (left to right) by Sonja of Puppenmacherei , Sabine of Bienchen Und Bluemchen, me Hannah Sanguinetti and two more again by Sonja.

The little girls made by Sabine and I (below left) were both made in the previous retreat in a workshop by Fabs of Fig and Me so they are sisters and were very happy to be reunited again! I love how different they are despite being made to the same pattern and with the same instruction. Sabine’s work is so full of careful detail and delicate colours, it’s really beautiful. As with illustration, a doll-makers visual voice can come through quite strongly at times.

I really enjoyed meeting all of these tiny dolls (below right) made by Nathasja of Smilla Handmade but was so busy enjoying their dainty proportions and details that I forgot to take a photo, so here is one I borrowed from her instagram page. The biggest doll in the photo is around 11 cm tall, and the smallest about 4cm! I think my eyes would fall out if I tried to work so tiny.

I learned also of the lovely work of Mari from Little Felauri who creates art dolls inspired by her manga illustration work. Mari brought her doll Elise to show us and she really is one full of character.

The second workshop I took part in during the retreat was about doll-making business skills with Fabiola of Fig and Me. There were just five of us and poor Fabiola taught from a screen due to paperwork trapping her in Portugal, but it was a perfect size group for taking a deep dive into marketing, planning and a scrutiny of each of our businesses.

Do go and look at all of their work; all so beautiful and so individual. From left to right we were Mari of Little Felauri, Sabine of Bienchen Und Bluemchen, me, Fabiola of Fig and Me, Nathasja of Smilla Handmade and a secret up-coming doll-maker who is building her portfolio (as we say in the illustration world).

Whilst I was at the retreat there was a small-scale textile market where I had my first ever stand selling illustrations! But that’s going to be the topic for next week’s post when I’ll tell you all about what I took to sell and how it went.

Relaxing with my cabin-mate Kateryna and my new doll Flora on the terrace after a long of sewing. You can see just how much fun I had!

A big thank-you goes to Kamrin and Berend Te Kronnie, from Kamrin’s Craft Cottage, who organised everything, welcomed us, made sure we had all the materials we needed for the workshops and made it possible for us all to get together. It was a wonderful week.

Hannah xx

P.S.

Did you know that I had my first solo exhibition in Trieste at the end of 2024? You didn’t? And you’d love to know more? I have a video tour of my exhibition free to view up on Youtube, you can view it here.

Many thanks to Michael Munnik for allowing me to use his beautiful music in the background of my tour video and also alongside my time-lapse video here, go and listen to his songs on Bandcamp here.