Colleen Babcock

Colleen has always enjoyed making ‘stuff’.  First, constructing things made out of paper toilet rolls as a kid in Canada.  Then, making costumes and sets as a Theatre Design & Production major at York University in Toronto, and now in every spare moment as a doll maker in London, England. It was Colleen’s dad and their mutual love of Christmas that inspired her to make a polymer clay Santa as a gift.  It wasn’t until seeing the dolls of Patti Culea, Barbara Willis and Betts Vidal at an exhibition in London years ago that cloth dolls figured into the equation.  Colleen found cloth doll making so magnetic because it never limits you to any one technique, material, or style.  An obsession was born.  Colleen’s husband, John and parents, Barry & Kitty are by now pros at fabric shopping, doll critiquing, and stoking the creative fires. 

Colleen has recently contributed a doll to Patti Medaris Culea’s book Creative Cloth Doll Beading, has had dolls featured in Soft Dolls and Animals, Art Doll Quarterly and Doll Crafter and Costuming magazines and loves teaching cloth doll making online.