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Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
Money at Home

Small Business
of Your Own

You Can Own
a Business

During the war a soldier friend, while in France, sent her a pixie doll—a doll with a human-like, mischievous expression. It not only pleased her, it entertained her. It was so versatile that she could vary its poses from time to time making it seem like a new friend who had just arrived.

Having had a busy life as a doctor's wife interrupted by his death some years ago, Mrs. Opland had taken a position in the local telephone office working on the night shift. That would seem to give the ordinary individual, at that age anyway, plenty to occupy her, but not so with this little dynamo.

Getting off duty at 7 o'clock in the morning, she usually had her breakfast about 1:30—as she still does. The afternoon, she found, offered a number of leisure hours before she went on duty at night even though she took care of her own apartment.

Being an excellent seamstress, she finally started making children's clothing as a hobby. But with her love for beauty, dainty tucks, ruffles, hand-sewed lace and bits of embroidery, she found she could not compete with the chain store, mass produced articles offered in the little prairie city. She could not demand the price that her materials and cost of production warranted. Hence she gave it up except for an occasional special order.

ONE DAY some college girls were visiting her, and while there they noticed her pixie doll. They immediately were captivated by its mischievous expression. They wanted to buy the pixie for their college room. They coaxed Mrs. Opland to make one just like it. Reluctantly she said she would try.

Delving around in her scrap box for material, she came upon some red satin. She recalled that red and white were the colors of the girls' college—the University of South Dakota. "Of course," she said, "it will have to have a white face and hands, and that will give me the two colors." Searching farther she dug up some red plaid which she decided to use for the legs.

Following the original pixie as closely as possible, she then worked out, by trial and error, a pattern which seemed satisfactory. "I thought I had succeeded pretty well at the time," she recalls with a chuckle, "but you wouldn't recognize one of those dolls today as a member of my present pixie family. But I had so much fun making it that I immediately began experimenting with others, and finally evolved these which I now sell as my 'Good Luck Pixies.'"

By that time, though, Mrs. Opland could no longer turn to her scrap bag for material. She realized too that she needed quite special material. She then made a trip to a larger shopping center, a practice she has since continued in order to get the kind, the colors, and variety of materials she needs such as satins, rayons, plaids, plain woolens—as well as colors in yarns, threads, etc. That is not to mention the "ogle eyes" which are a story in themselves. By getting a half yard of one material for the body, sleeves and boots, and one-quarter yard for the legs, she has enough for five dolls.

When Mrs. Opland started, she used flesh-colored satin for the face and hands, but she now uses a flesh-colored plastic which she buys by the yard and finds very pliable. It is easy to sew and embroiders well for the facial features. Folding it five times, she lays on the pattern and cuts two sets to make five heads and five pairs of hands. She then embroiders the mouth, nostrils and eyes with scarlet ana blue threads, after which she is ready to stitch up the head and hands. She then lays these aside and turns to the pattern and material for the body and other parts. Folding the material, she cuts four at a time using contrasting materials.

For instance, if she uses satin or rayon for the body, arms and boots, she uses a plain material for the legs, usually matching the brightest color in the plaid. In stitching the pieces together, she takes a one-eighth-inch seam, and is very careful to make neat corners. One watching her work wonders at the agility of the fingers of this 78-year-old woman.

Turning them after the stitching, Mrs. Opland then makes the hinged joints in the arms and legs by sewing across with a matching yarn using a chain stitch. She is then ready to stuff the individual parts, except the head. To the face of that she must first add the eyes. "And shopping for the buttons to make them gives me one of my biggest headaches," she says. Upon examining them, one can easily see why. The eye is made with three buttons sewed on top of each other. First there is an amber colored—always amber—button about one-half inch across. On top of that is a pearl button in pale pink, light grey or white, a bit smaller. Then for the pupil she sews on top a small, smooth-topped green, black, brown, blue or grey button with the holes at the base. The combination gives the ogling effect that produces that mischievous expression that makes the dolls so popular and attractive.

Mrs. Opland is then ready to stuff the dolls. For this she uses a long fibered cotton so that it will not mat. With a whirl throw—tossing to the right with a quick throw to catch in the loose ends, she guides it into the small opening with a flat surgical instrument pressing it firmly into every corner. When she has completed this task, every part is firmly packed, and that is what makes it possible to pose the dolls so gracefully, and in so many different positions on a chair or elsewhere.

She is then ready to sew the sections together. This she does with a tiny overhand stitch, turning in the edges carefully to make a neat edge. First the head and body are joined at the neckline, then the legs, arms, boots and lastly the hands.

The court-jester-like cap is then topped by five yarn pompons, of different colors or of variegated yarns, about two inches in diameter. They are attached by short chain-stitch cords to allow them to flop gracefully. The little pixie then gets the bow tie. This is a quarter-inch satin ribbon and the bow is sewed on separately. Covered buttons adorn the satin or rayon jacket. The hands are then caught together at the palms, and the pixie is ready to go into the Cellophane bag for market.

THESE DOLLS sell for $2.85 and have been sent to almost all sections of the United States and some to Canada. Often some friend sends for some to give to her friends, or to sell for Mrs. Opland, or somebody has seen one and wishes more. A large number of the dolls have been sold at the neighboring University of South Dakota. Local girls have taken them by the half dozen or by the dozen in a box and sold them around the dormitory. They charge no commission.

"Although during the summer I think I am getting ahead so that I will have ample for my holiday trade," says Mrs. Opland, "I always run short. My Christmas dolls are sold pretty much by placing them in the local stores or in those of the neighboring towns. The stores do not charge any commission either, which is characteristic of merchants in the small prairie towns of this region. But even if I paid a commission I could still profit from my dolls."