Ugly dolls

In the Swedish comprehensive school ( age 7 to 16) you have handicraft lessons once a week. One semester you study textile handicraft and the next semester you study woodwork and this continue throughout your school years. Once a week you also study art and drawing and have music lessons. This is enormously important for the creativity and the teacher has a very important role in giving the pupils an opportunity to explore their creative side and in giving them self confidence by telling them that they are good and gifted. Not all teachers have this gift however. My old textile teacher in school definitely didn’t. We knitted mittens and crocheted kettle-holders. My kettle-holders were never square and my teacher made me feel that I was a lost case! Thankfully my mother was a great inspiration instead and thought me how to embroider and use a sewing machine.





This is Eva. She is my daughter’s textile teacher in school. And she’s a good role model indeed. Not only has she got textile lessons bur she also started a work shop after school so that the pupils could improve their skills even more. Each semester the pupils have an exhibition were they show all the things they have made during the semester. Dresses, skirts, pillows, soft toys, bags and much more is displayed in the school library and all the pupils and the teachers come and admire the work.

This year they also had an ugly dolls competition. While making the ugly doll they trained to go from a drawing to a finished doll by way of making their own pattern. The youngest pupils were nine and the eldest twelve.

My daughter loves her handicraft lessons and is very creative at home as well. And last Christmas she got her best present ever – her very own sewing machine !