About the Book

During the 1970s and '80s, more and more people (mainly women) gathered to make dolls together.
As they worked on the dolls and instructions to make them, they slowly but surely developed a series of dolls inspired by the different developmental stages of children, using anthroposophy as a basis.

The name ‘Sunshine’ was coined during a doll-making course attended by a group of women at Edith Ottger’s home. The course participants were brainstorming to find a name for the dolls when they suddenly saw the sun shining brightly onto the children playing with the dolls in the conservatory. Thus the name Sunshine Dolls was born!

In the years that followed, work continued on further developing the dolls. Through working together and comparing different working methods, by experimenting with one another to see how to make a sturdy head that doesn’t wobble on the torso, how to make legs that aren't lumpy, how to properly use the grain of the tricot so the stretchtchiness is greater widthwise than lengthwise, how to make different types of hair, and so on.

Initially, all this information was distributed to course participants on stapled sheets of stencilled paper, accompanied by simple diagrams and drawings.

Until one fine day, Marjolein van Leeuwen-Zier and Conny Dekker-de Hont decided to set about creating a proper book. They asked illustrator Janneke Rosenbrand to produce drawings of the various types of dolls and instructional drawings, and thus a comprehensive book came into being. It included pedagogical background information, detailed instructions and beautiful, clear illustrations. Conny Dekker created the pentagrams for the various dolls, provided sketches for the technical drawings and drew the patterns.

Around the turn of the century, Wilfried Nauta and Tanja Markies came up with the idea of producing a CD-ROM, the proceeds from the sale of which should ultimately enable the publication of the book. Wilfried created a lovely website for Sunshine Dolls, and the CD-ROM enjoyed a long run of successful sales  However, at a certain point, the technology was no longer up to scratch, and the Sunshine Dolls Foundation in collaboration with Wilfried, decided to make the content available free of charge via the website until the book was published.

When the book was published by Mercurius International in 2020, we were in the midst of the Covid pandemic, which meant that a (previously planned) launch event as part of a Guild Day could not go ahead.

Meanwhile, Tanja (English born and brought up in the Netherlands) was working on the translation of the book, and when a generous donor came forward via Conny, who was willing to fund its publication, the book Sunshine Dolls was born as well!

And imagine our delight: the picture book, illustrated by Janneke, was published too!

You are now looking at our new website, which offers us all the opportunity to achieve our goal on an international scale: to give as many children as possible around the world the chance to receive a doll lovingly handmade by a caring adult.

Wishing you a lot of fun in crafting your own doll(s)!!