As long-term followers of this blog will know, I have for some years had an ongoing artist collaboration with superstar designer Sarah Campbell.

Above and below you can see some of the most recent dolls resulting from this creative artist collaboration (they are for sale via Sarah’s website). Sarah has long been one of my design heroes. One of the two founders (alongside her sister Susan Collier) of legendary fabric design company Collier Campbell, over many years Sarah has created patterns and fabrics for Heals, Liberty and many, many other big names.

She is still very much in action, designing beautiful quilting fabrics, teaching inspirational workshops and hand painting wonderful, colour-filled designs on calico and linen, amongst other things.

Our association began some years ago now, when I read her blog and she read mine, and she spotted some of my earliest dolls. We corresponded – and the rest, as they say, is history.The whole experience of working with and for Sarah has been an absolute joy for me.

Through our collaboration I’ve had opportunities that I never would have dreamt would come my way. For example, the dolls I made using Sarah’s archive Liberty fabrics were included in the Liberty in Fashion exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London in 2015 / 2016.

I even got to go to the opening! Last year I realised a long-held ambition to have my work sold in Anthropologie, as part of Sarah’s “Painted Treasures” exhibition and showcase.

Our collaboration has brought me so much. Not just opportunities and exposure to new audiences, but artistic challenges, new ideas, excitement and joy.

As Sarah herself put it so well: “I think this works because we can each do things we like and they seem to join up in the dolls”.So I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to try collaborating with other artists too, in similar or different ways. And instead of waiting for someone to suggest something to me, I thought well, maybe I could approach someone…

Wondering who to ask, I thought about all of the creative friends I have. There are a lot to choose from!

One of these friends is Anna Nelson, a printmaker whose talents I’ve long admired.You can see more of Anna’s  work for yourself – pop over and give her a follow on Instagram – she’s Fabritzia Design.

Our paths have crossed quite often. We’ve done a fair few of the same Nottingham craft fairs over the years. I once helped her test out a printing workshop she was running and she used to share a studio with another friend of mine.

When Anna packed up her studio to move up north, I bought one of her prints – and her old vintage dolls house, which became a display prop on my stall… I’ve continued to follow Anna’s work since she moved away and recently I spotted some faces that she’d printed.

A thought started to emerge… So after a couple of glasses of wine one evening, I messaged her. Would she be interested in collaborating on a project to make a small collection of dolls?

Plans were hatched, parcels were exchanged, and work began at my end.

There’s nothing quite like having to adapt your usual style in order to incorporate and assimilate another artist’s designs to make you feel creatively alive! It’s not all plain sailing, far from it. That’s what makes it such an interesting challenge.

At first I worried whether anything useable would emerge at all.

I went through this classic creative process…
My experience matched up something like this…

1. Unwrapping the parcel full of Anna’s printed fabrics
2. Thinking about how exactly I was going to turn them into dolls
3. My first attempt…
4. Stuck!
5. My second attempt, after considerable faffing
6. …maybe?…

In the end, something has emerged.

Something Christmassy, but not glittery or sparkly. I think of these dolls as a contemporary Christmas collection – merry and bright, but (hopefully!) not overblown or naff.

Something for those amongst us who are allergic (or just strongly averse) to tinsel and all it’s fake, glittery counterparts that will be all over the shops like a sparkly rash between now and Christmas.

But hey, I’ll let you be the judge…The faces and printed patterns are Anna’s, the dolls are my own designs. They have soft bodies and rigid, wool-wrapped clay legs. They could be hung on the wall, or added to the Christmas tree (I’m going to add some hanging loops).

I like the idea that they might possibly trundle out of a box year after year to grace seasonal displays. (I don’t mind if you hang them up next to the tinsel, honest!)

There will be more to come, because I still have other, different faces yet to tackle. More challenges ahead!

And there are more hand-painted dolls with Sarah lined up.

It looks like it’s going to be a collaborative Christmas!