Crafters Anonymous: West Haven woman spends hours creating reborn dolls
Dianna Farr explains the work that went into some of the "reborn" dolls in the entryway of her home in West Haven on Monday, Feb. 8, 2016. "Reborning" dolls is a craft in which people add intricate details to vinyl dolls in order to make them look more lifelike.
Dianna Farr shows off one of the " fall dolls" that she sews at her home in West Haven on Monday, Feb. 8, 2016.
In addition to dolls, Dianna Farr also creates teddy bears and stuffed animals. This dog is created out of felt.
Several completed dolls sit on Dianna Farr's counter at her home in West Haven on Monday, Feb. 8, 2016.
Dianna Farr says she has been making dolls most of her life. She now builds, collects and sells a variety of dolls and stuffed animals.
WEST HAVEN — The baby doll I loved to play with as a child really belonged to one of my sisters.
I loved it because its fingers had the lines to make the knuckles look real and its eyes opened and shut. And it even drank a bottle of water and then I would have to change its diapers.
When I became a mom, I learned there are all kinds of dolls out there for little girls — and then I fell in love with porcelain dolls, but I thought I was too “old” to collect them so I bought them for my daughters.
Dianna Farr, 72, of West Haven is not ashamed of her love of dolls. She relishes creating dolls that look lifelike. The term is “reborn doll,” a manufactured vinyl doll that has been transformed through various techniques to resemble a human baby.
When you walk into Farr’s home, there is a 3 1/2 foot doll sitting in a chair by the door holding a baby doll with a pacifier in its mouth. Farr made both dolls.
In almost every room of Farr’s home there are dolls, teddy bears and stuffed animals she has made. Some she created by hand one tiny stitch at a time. Dolls hang from her wall, sit on her couch, stand in corners, look at you from shelves. She has dolls made out of felt, pine cones and even sewn by hand teddy bears less than 2 inches tall, using wire to keep the form.
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BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner
Dianna Farr shows how she adds hair to the head of a vinyl doll as she “reborns” it at her home in West Haven on Monday, Feb. 8, 2016. “Reborning” dolls is a craft in which people add intricate details to vinyl dolls in order to make them look more lifelike.
She also made a Jule Tomte, a Swedish Christmas doll, who looks very real and is supposed to guard the animals during the winter.
“I’ve always loved dolls,” said Farr, who has five children and 20 grandchildren.
She remembers sneaking her grandmother’s porcelain doll out of her mother’s cedar chest to play with. One day she dropped the doll “and my mother was not happy,” Farr said.
Farr said the artistry of reborn dolls, also known as living dolls or unliving dolls, is popular across the country. The dolls are sometimes created to bring comfort to a parent who has gone through a loss of a child.
A local website called Bountiful Babies sells realistic doll kits and provides free video tutorials on how to make a reborn doll, Farr said.
Farr said it takes several hours to paint the veins on the baby dolls’ heads, necks, hands, legs and feet, as well as to put color on their face so they look like a real baby. With each step of the painting she has to bake the parts slowly in an oven — one “that I don’t bake food in,” she said.
It also takes several hours to insert each strand of hair into their heads with a rooting tool, which looks like a long needle but has barbs at the point to hold the strands in place. She prefers using mohair, which comes from Angora goats. She has used human hair on some of her dolls, as well as wig hair, or an acrylic fiber.
Sometimes she will sew or crochet clothes for her baby dolls, but most of the time she just watches for sales of newborn clothes.
Farr also weighs the baby dolls so, when picked up, they feel like the weight of a real baby. Recently, I rocked my great-nephew so my niece could eat her lunch and believe me, when I picked up one of Farr’s baby dolls, it felt as if I was holding a baby.
Farr said some reborn doll artists will put “a heart” and “a warmer” inside the dolls so there is a heartbeat and the doll feels warm, like a baby.
“For me that’s a bit creepy,” she said.
She has taken her baby dolls to local nursing homes so the patients can hold them.
“It brings them comfort,” Farr said.
You can reach reporter Loretta Park at lpark@standard.net or at 801-625-4252. Follow her on Twitter@LorettaParkSE or like her on Facebook.