Check these out! Child figure beaded dolls made by Lobolile Ximba

Lobolile

When Lobolile Ximba popped in this week, with her small child figure dolls, we knew something special was happening in the beaded cloth doll making enterprise! 


Linda and I have, for a while now, wanted to come up with a beautiful Siyazama doll, which had far fewer glass beads, as embellishments. This is something that the current and local economic environment has tossed our way! Glass beads, and most especially the Czech variety from Jablonex,  are becoming increasingly expensive. Nonetheless, we all love them and treasure them, so we were mindful that we needed to come up with a solution to this problem.  The Siyazama Project dolls are prized because of their rich beadwork. 


When the David Gere A.R.T. project emerged we decided that this was the time to make our changes. The child figure dolls are small, around 7cms high, and we need 600 of them to complete our tower.  We decided that we would ask the craftswomen to cover most of the figure with fabric, and then to add the beadwork intrinsically and significantly, and in places where glass beads will be noticed and acknowledged.


This way we got to use the wonderful Jablonex glass beads and the small dolls are looking very cute and child-like!

A variety of child figure dolls covered with fabric!