Felt dolls at the market

Great morning at the Saturday Farmer's Market--lovely temp near 60 degrees! Can you believe it? What a nice break from the heat--feels just like fall, although we've got another month and a half of heat left in store. The 9-10:30 crowd at the market wasn't too packed, which was nice.


After getting a great Cherokee Purple tomato, a buck bag of basil, a Rosa Bianca eggplant from John Borski, a few yellow wax peppers for frying, a random 25-cent cucumber and a tavern ham from a hormone- and antibiotic-free pig farm in Cache Valley, I decided to stroll the crafts vendors.

There were some great porcelain pieces (birdhouses and some odd, lovely kitchen bowl-like vessels holding rock salt and peppercorns--way to sell to the farmers market crowd!) But what caught my imagination today was the work of a woman named Cathy Cartwright from Ogden (you can email her through that link).

She makes the most interesting felt dolls. She makes other things, too, like fused glass and jewelry, but I thought her dolls totally stole the show. Of course, I have a daughter who's 7 this year, and while I was talking to Cathy, a woman with a 7-year-old daughter came up and bought one of the dolls, so perhaps it's just that they're perfect for that demographic. In any case, Cathy explained to me how she hand-shapes the features on the dolls while working dry felting wool with a needle. The dolls are imbued with crazy personality, with evocative and exaggerated features. I can just imagine Cathy sitting down, needling in a little eye of newt and powdered unicorn horn, smiling as she brings a new character to life. It's straight out of a children's book.

So I think I found birthday gifts for the girls in my daughter's class this year. Nice to find something so unique and local. Thanks, Cathy.