| I just thought of another activity to keep kids occupied for a while: Dolls. Knot or Rock Dolls This one is documentable. It seems that near camps of large skirmishes and wars, remains of simple period children's toys were found. These things were left behind or lost by the camp followers, who may have had to leave hurredly. They were found both in England and in Germany. One of the toys found were "knot" or "rock" dolls. What you need: A strip of pale cloth about a foot long and 4-6 inches wide (need not be hemmed or cut neatly). Stuffing or wadding or scrap material(to use instead of the small rock, so the kids won't use them as weapons ;) A strip of pale cloth about 6 inches long and 4 inches wide Permanent markers Scraps of felt, trim, yarn etc. IF DESIRED What to do: Take your long strip of cloth. Put a head-sized wad of stuffing.wadding.srap in the center. Tie a half-hitch knot to form the head around the stuffing. Make a small knot in both ends of your short strip of cloth to make "hands". This piece is the arms. Place arms on top of the "neck" knot, and make another half-hitch. Tie 2-3 more half-hitches, to form a body. Tie a small knot in the ends of the dangling strips to make feet. Use markers to draw a face. If desired, use scraps to decorate. Stick Dolls A stick woth a knob on the end, and arms fashioned from something or other is period from Ancient Egypt up to Germany in the 1400s. Hot-Glue a large wooden bead onto an appropriate sized dowel.Hot-gluee on felt hands (the originals had wire hands). Give to children to finish. Use markers to make the face, and put collars of felt, ribbons with bells, felt hats, glues on, etc. These are what we'd call Jester's Wands today. Cheers Aoife.....These ideas cribbed directly from Mistress Alisoun de Bregeuf of the East, a Fantastic souce for documentable kids toys. She teaches a great class on this at Pennsic. Making modern Crafts from the original toy items is my idea. |
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