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Soon after her marriage to a musician (in private life she is Mrs. May L. Bilse) she moved to California and later began to make character dolls for the neighborhood children as well as her own. Children and grown-ups alike marveled at the life-like quality of these dolls made from stockings, old sweaters, and bits of wire. These dolls were the forerunners of the sculptures in yarn.

Miss LeSan was returning home one night in 1942 when she noticed a newsboy on a street corner near her home unwrapping papers wrapped with baling wire and she said to herself, "I can do something with that wire!" And so the idea for her first yarn figure was born.

Her first sculpture in yarn was Popeye, soon followed by Olive Oyl. After trying other comic strip characters, Miss LeSan bought a picture book of animals and began to create sculptured animals. Her materials to work with came from the newsboys whom she asked to save all the baling wire they could find, for which she paid them, and from unraveled old moth-eaten sweaters that were given to the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, which she washed and dyed. Colorful little figures which popped back into the show windows of the Red Cross and Salvation Army Stores were a far cry from the moth-eaten sweaters that had given them birth.

These original creations attracted the attention of doll collectors all over the country as well as the mothers of the boys overseas. As mascots they delighted our men of the armed forces and one blond girl figure made twenty-seven missions over Germany. The pilot claimed that the doll kept the gremlins out of the plane. At the same time the sale of the little characters helped buy ambulances and equipment for the war. Thus they performed a twofold mission.

All through the war years these yarn figures found their way into the European theatre of action. Stories keep coming back of the part some of them played in the lives of their owners. May LeSan weaves such personality and life into her little figures that she avoids the usual static quality in most dolls and one actually finds that "her characters have souls," to quote a sailor who is the proud possessor of one of her "pixies." Recently, a woman upon seeing the figures for the first time remarked: "Why that one looks just like my old schoolteacher!"

SQUARES WOVEN on a $1 four-inch, hand loom provide the outer covering of all the yarn sculptures and the frame work is wire. Crepe paper, cotton, and scraps of material are used to build up the figures. They range from about six inches to sixteen inches in height. A six-inch figure takes about a day to make, while a dragon, which is hand knitted, requires three or four days. Her dragons are very wicked looking and are the most elaborate figures she makes.

May LeSan goes about creating a figure in this manner: The first thing she does is weave a four-inch square with flesh colored yarn on the little loom. Next, the head is shaped by wrapping cotton around a short strand of wire. This is covered with the plain yarn square and sewed together down the back to form a neck. The features of the face are worked with a needle in yarn which is sewed back and forth through the cotton stuffing to give shape to the head and face. The hair is also made of yarn sewed back and forth through the top of the head.

Next, the torso is formed. This is a heavy piece of cardboard, cut in the desired length and just a little wider than the face. Cotton is wrapped around this flat cardboard, with more added here and there to give the body shape. Then crepe paper is wrapped around the cotton and sewed securely to the cardboard base.

The arms are made from one length of wire, first wrapped with the crepe paper and then flesh colored yarn. The hands (each having four flexible fingers and a thumb) are made in this manner: Each finger is made of fine picture wire covered with crepe paper. The fingers are wrapped together at one end with fine wire and wound with flesh colored yarn which is woven through and through with a needle to form the palms of the hands. The thumbs are sewn on the sides of the palms after the fingers and arms are attached.

The legs are formed in a similar manner to the arms with little pieces of cardboard cut out to form the soles of the feet. Cotton forms the feet, covered with crepe paper, and shoes are worked in with a needle threaded with yarn.

Now the figure is ready to be put together. The head is attached to the torso, with the end of the wire which forms the neck being pushed down into the cotton stuffing. The arms are attached across the top of the torso and the legs are connected to the lower part of the torso by sewing with carpet thread. The hands are sewed to the arms with the same thread.

Next, the figure is clothed. The clothing is woven on the hand loom, using various colors of yarn. The squares are sewn together to make dresses, coats, shirts, suits, sweaters, skirts, etc., depending on the sex and costume of the figure.

After the figure is dressed, a little fingernail polish is applied to the tips of the fingers and color is given to the cheeks with a red art pencil.

MISS LESAN takes her sculpture right from life, her subway characters being a good example. A few years ago she moved to New York City from California and took her first subway ride. In her car was an intoxicated man and a "disgusted little old lady" and Miss LeSan was so fascinated that she returned home and worked frantically to create these little people in yarn. Soon other characters joined these to ride the subway. They inspired Mallory, a New York designer and artist, to design the subway car for the figures to travel in.

Everyone has a favorite among the various people and animals that Miss LeSan creates: gay jitterbugs, town gossips, subway people (my favorites), ballerinas, mermaids like no man has ever seen, old folks at home, goony gals, weird gnomes, adorable children at play, dragons, camels, giraffes, snakes, donkeys, horses, and friendly dogs. Miss LeSan says that her favorites are the ugly gnomes and the goony susies.

Just before the end of the war the National Yarn Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio, fell heir to one of the yarn sculptures through a doll collector who had bought some of the dolls from the Red Cross shop. They were so impressed with the workmanship that they "tracked down" May LeSan and learned the story of the unraveling of the sweaters, which prompted them to send her more than enough yarn to cover her needs. Regularly she receives packages of brightly colored yarn from them. Another ardent fan sent her a large roll of baling wire after he had seen one of her creations.

UNTIL RECENTLY Miss LeSan had never thought about making any money with her hobby. Then a friend of hers showed one of her figures to the owner of a swank Fifth Avenue shoe salon. This resulted in her little gnomes highlighting their windows for two weeks, for which she was paid $200 per week for the rental of the figures. Many people saw them and went into the store to ask if they were for sale. One young woman telephoned Miss LeSan and told her that she was spending part of her lunch hours looking at the figures in the windows and couldn't she please buy one. Most of these gnomes were sold for $25 per figure at the end of two weeks when they were taken out of the windows.

A gift shop that Miss LeSan contacted sold many "witches" she made for Hallowe'en and wanted more than she could possibly supply.

Last November, the sculptures in yarn were exhibited at the American House Gallery in New York City and many were sold to collectors and people looking for original Christmas gifts.

This exhibit prompted the New York World-Telegram to run a three column interview with photographs. Many orders poured in by telephone and mail within the next few days. A week later the Sunday Mirror ran a full page picture "spread" about the sculptures, which brought mail and orders from all over the United States.

Because of the intricacy of each figure and the length of time involved in creating one, it is impossible to produce them on a mass basis. Incidentally, no two are ever alike. Therefore, they are sold mostly to collectors who can afford to spend from $25 to $100 for the sculptures.

At the present time Miss LeSan is concentrating on creating figures for advertising and window displays since she believes she can realize the most money from her hobby in this manner with the least amount of work.