How to make corn husk dolls

(with thanks to In Good Heart Farm)

Last night, hurriedly grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s on my way home from class, I noticed that they were out of a lot of things they usually have, including coconut milk, walnuts, and many of their plastic-wrapped, climate-straining, not-local vegetables. Skipping the veggie aisle for the cookie shelves, I was reminded of a good choice we made at the start of the pandemic, and that I’m glad my family has continued: joining a farm share. Not only is our farm share nearly plastic free (you bring your own bags to pick up your veggies), it’s also plentiful and much less reliant on the global supply chain.

We’ve also learned so much from Ben and Patricia, the farmers who run In Good Heart Farm—they send a weekly newsletter with recipes, photos, and suggestions about how to process the food they grow, which is beautiful, organic, and incredibly varied. Patricia and her daughter Abilene even inspired me to start foraging mushrooms.

When I got home, I saw an email from Patricia: “*Don’t pop the popcorn*,” read the subject line. We’d gotten three ears of dried corn in our share this week, and apparently it’s not ready to pop yet. No big deal—Patricia suggested that we wait a month for it to dry, and in the meantime we could make corn husk dolls.

Both girls have the day off from school, and turned out to be a perfect morning activity.

First, a little history: Corn husk dolls were made by Indigenous people long before Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about them in Little House in the Big Woods. Corn was a sacred crop of northeastern Native Americans, and the dolls were used not only as toys for children, but as part of healing ceremonies. Before making your corn husk dolls, read this legend of the Haudenosaunee people and why they do not put faces on their corn husk dolls.

Bea will tell you how we made them:

1. First, remove the corn carefully from the inside of the husk.

2. Next, pick a spot near the top of the husk, where the husks connected to the corn. Then tie a string tightly to make a round, face-like shape. Tie another string for the waist.

3. Then, take some extra corn husk—you’ll probably get some loose strands while you’re taking out the corn. Roll that into an arm shape, twist it in the middle, and feed it through the body. If you want, you can glue any loose parts with hot glue—but be careful!

4. If you’re making a a doll that wears pants, you can make legs by separating the bottom of the husks into two sections and tying string near the bottom for ankles. If you want your doll to wear a skirt, leave the strands loose.

5. Take fabric or fall leaves and wrap them around for a skirt. Use what you have for decoration!

6. For hair, there’s these little threads you get when you take out the corn called corn silk. Wrap it around the pointy stem and make a bun. If you have any flowers and ribbon, you can put that in her hair too!

7. I helped Harriet make a baby corn husk doll by swaddling the baby with corn husk and fabric. We put her on a leaf for a bed. I can’t give up the secrets of the doll’s baba, but you can figure out your own way of doing that!

As usual, the girls had more fun playing with something they made than they do with store-bought, plastic toys:

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And a few links related to the COP26 conference, concluding today:

From Vogue, “Why we desperately need more female leaders making decisions on climate change”

From HEATED, Emily Atkin’s incredibly useful Substack, “The rich injustice of COP26”

And watch climate leader Brianna Fruean’s powerful speech with your kids—it’s just the right length, and opens up good avenues for discussion about what climate justice means, and how youth activists like her are “resilient beacons of hope.”

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Happy weekend, Frog Troublers! Are you noticing that you’re more interested in making things as the days get shorter? Please share any craft ideas you have in the comments.