The birth of the Dandelion family

"Mom! Your a professional baby maker" my seven year old son says to me as I sit at the kitchen table sewing baby dolls.
It all started with a little doll we so lovingly call Soph-da-phina...

 I suppose I’ll begin with a friend of mine, who received a doll for her daughter Sophie’s second birthday. The doll was made by a dear friend of hers back in Texas.  When I saw this doll, it was as though time stopped.  It was the hair.  It was the squishy body.  It was the buttons on the arms.  It was the simple preciousness of her dress.  It was the hair.  Did I mention the hair?  The doll – let’s call her the Matriarch of the Dandelion Family, was named Seraphina.  My friend’s little daughter immediately dubbed her Soph-da-phina, after her own name.  And so it stuck.  The doll that began it all, Soph-da-phina, is distinct and different from the dolls that eventually flowed from my sewing machine.  But she was the doll that started it all, and she holds a very special place in my heart.