I bought the doll plan because, despite having a very clear picture
in my head of what Nana could eventually become, I had absolutely
no idea how to construct a doll like this from scratch. The pattern
could give me the basic proportions and somewhere to begin, but
after that, the clothes, the hair, the face, the personality and
everything that would eventually turn a piece of fabric into
her had to be figured out as I went.

I don’t think I realised quite how much she was going to teach me.

There were plenty of moments during those first weeks when I
genuinely thought I couldn’t do it. I’d be sitting inside our
camper surrounded by fabric, stuffing, yarn and whatever problem
I’d created for myself that day, completely convinced I’d reached
the limit of what I knew how to fix. More than once, I cried to my
husband and told him it simply wasn’t working.

He would remind me to look at where I’d been a month earlier.

Not where I thought I should be. Not at the finished doll I could
already see so clearly in my head. Just where I had actually
started.

And annoyingly, he was right.

Every time I thought I couldn’t make her, I had already learned
something I hadn’t known how to do a few weeks earlier.

An Old Sewing Machine and a Camper Full of Ideas

Most of Nana was sewn on the same sewing machine I’ve had since I
was about 18. I’m 35 now, which means that machine has followed me
through almost half my life, and apparently it has developed enough
personality during that time to decide for itself when it will and
won’t participate.

There were several occasions during Nana’s construction when it
simply stopped.

I did all the appropriate troubleshooting, naturally.

And by that I mean I eventually gave it a kick.

Apparently that was the mechanical expertise it required, because
more than once it kicked back into gear and we carried on.

That old machine is part of what I love about the Founder
Collection now. These aren’t dolls being made on a production line
somewhere. The first 25 are being created here, inside our camper
on rural land in Western Australia, using a sewing machine I’ve
owned since I was a teenager.

There is something beautifully Nana’s Quest about that.

Not everything needs to begin with perfect equipment, a beautiful
studio and years of expertise. Sometimes you begin with the thing
you already have and work out the rest as you go.

And there was a lot to work out.

Nana’s Cardigan Taught Me Something Too

I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly strong crocheter. I
can crochet, but I’m not someone who has spent decades perfecting
it.

Unfortunately for me, Nana needed a cardigan.

So I crocheted one.

That’s actually become one of the things I want Nana’s Quest to
stand for, because I think we’ve accidentally made the word
crafter feel like a qualification.

It isn’t.

Craft is enormous. It’s a spectrum of people, materials, knowledge
and experience. There are makers who can create things with a level
of precision I couldn’t begin to replicate. There are people
learning their very first stitch. There are people who inherited a
skill from their Nana and people who have nobody around them who
knows the craft they’re trying to learn.

Then there are people like me, who perhaps don’t know how to do
something particularly well yet, but are stubborn enough to keep
doing it until something eventually appears.

Nana’s cardigan appeared.

So I kept going.

Then the Dog Destroyed Her Hair

Nana’s hair became an entire experiment of its own. It’s made from
acrylic yarn and fabric stiffener, and by the time I finally had it
looking the way I wanted, I was incredibly relieved to call that
part finished.

Then my dog came along.

Somehow she managed to scratch through Nana’s finished hair and
pull parts of it away.

I was devastated.

It sounds ridiculous to say I cried over doll hair, but by that
point it wasn’t just doll hair. It represented hours of trying
things, undoing things, learning, finally solving the problem and
reaching that lovely moment where you can say,
that’s done.

Except it wasn’t done anymore.

So I had to make it again.

There were plenty of tears that night, but when I finally sat down
and rebuilt it, I had something the first version of me hadn’t had:
experience.

The second time, I knew what I was doing.

And the second version was better.

That happened repeatedly while making this doll. The disasters I
desperately wanted to avoid were often the things that eventually
taught me how I actually wanted Nana to look.

Her face is probably the best example.

The Face Underneath Nana’s Face

Technically, Nana has two faces.

The first one is still underneath there.

When I began making her, I thought I would embroider her lips. I
discovered rather quickly that embroidery was not going to be my
hidden talent.

So I changed tactics and decided I could draw them instead.

That went even worse.

The colour leaked into the fabric and I thought I’d ruined her face
completely. After everything I’d already done, this was another one
of those moments where I looked at the doll and couldn’t see a
solution.

So I cried.

Then, eventually, I grabbed the glue.

I started playing with teddy stuffing, building shape over the
original face, and laid another piece of fabric across the top. I
worked it into the shape underneath and suddenly this disaster
started turning into something much more interesting than the flat
face I’d originally planned.

She developed cheeks. Shape. Little lines and wrinkles. Her face
suddenly had dimension.

The face I thought I’d destroyed became the reason Nana has the
face she has now.

Her original doll face is still underneath it.

I rather love knowing that.

The Strange Thing About Being Criticised for Using AI

While all of this was happening, Nana’s Quest was criticised by
somebody for using AI. Their comment was essentially that it was
funny for a handmade platform to use artificial intelligence.

I’ve been criticised plenty of times while building businesses.
Sometimes it comes from complete strangers. Sometimes, rather
surprisingly, it comes from family. I’m never quite sure why
somebody else’s attempt at creating something can bother people so
much, but this particular criticism made me think about the doll
sitting in front of me.

Because the truth is, AI helped me make Nana.

So did patterns.

So did advice from other people.

So did research.

So did every question I asked when I couldn’t work out what to do
next.

Without those things, I’m not sure I would have got her finished.

But none of those tools sat down at my sewing machine and made her.
They didn’t crochet her cardigan. They didn’t stuff her body. They
didn’t remake her hair when the dog destroyed it. They didn’t try
to embroider the lips, make a complete mess of them, cry about it
and eventually discover an entirely different way of constructing
her face.

My hands still had to do that.

And perhaps that is one of the things I find most interesting about
craft now. The way we pass knowledge around has always changed.

Someone once sat beside somebody else and showed them a stitch.
Patterns allowed that knowledge to travel further. Books did it.
Magazines did it. Videos did it. The internet did it.

Now I can be sitting in a camper in rural Western Australia, trying
to solve some ridiculous problem at night, and ask for ideas.

Then I still have to pick up the fabric and try.

To me, that doesn’t take anything away from handmade. It allowed
someone who wasn’t sure she could make a doll to discover that she
could.

Somewhere Along the Way, She Stopped Being My Nana

The Nana’s Quest logo began with two very real women behind it: my
Nana and my husband’s Nana.

Founder Doll No. 001 has now gone to my mother-in-law, in honour of
my husband’s Nana. It felt right that the first finished doll
belonged there.

But the longer I worked on her, the more I realised the doll wasn’t
really about either of our Nanas anymore.

She’s about Nana.

The person who taught you something without you realising you were
being taught. The recipes written down in handwriting you recognise
immediately. The sewing machine. The knitting needles. The button
tin. The stories that were repeated so often you used to roll your
eyes, and would now happily sit through one more time.

She’s the extra five minutes you stayed.

She’s the cup of tea.

In my family, I’m the coffee drinker. My Nana is the tea drinker,
preferably with ginger nut biscuits, and now I’ve written that I
desperately want some.

But Nana can also represent something you didn’t have.

Maybe you lost yours years ago. Maybe you wish you’d known her
better. Maybe you never had the sort of Nana relationship other
people talk about. Maybe you’re reaching the point in your own life
where you’re becoming Nana and suddenly realising you’re now the
person who gets to pass things down.

That’s what this doll became to me.

Not one woman.

All the different things the word Nana can mean.

Which Is Why Nana Isn’t Standing in Her Box

Originally, I imagined the Founder Doll arriving in one of those
long collector boxes where the doll stands proudly inside.

It sounded beautiful.

Until we joked that neither of the Nanas who inspired this whole
thing could walk particularly well anyway. 😉

And suddenly I knew exactly how she should arrive.

Nana sits.

Of course she bloody sits.

She’s 21 inches tall, dressed in her cardigan and apron, ready to
find her place in somebody else’s home. Put her somewhere
comfortable. Give her a view. Have your cup of coffee while she
waits for her tea.

And rather than calling the person who buys her an owner, I prefer
caretaker.

Because I hope these dolls are around long enough that their
stories don’t finish with the person I send them to.

The First 25

There will only ever be 25 dolls in this particular 21-Inch Founder
Collection.

That doesn’t mean there will only ever be 25 Nana dolls. I have
absolutely no idea what The Dollhouse will look like years from
now, and that’s part of the fun.

But these 25 belong to this moment.

They’re the first ones. The ones being handmade in our camper while
Nana’s Quest itself is still growing. The ones made on my old
sewing machine. The collection where I was still figuring out
Nana’s face, her hair, her clothes and what she actually
represented.

No. 001 has already left for my mother-in-law.

The others will be made when their caretakers arrive. There isn’t a
warehouse with 24 identical Nanas lined up on shelves. When
somebody orders one, I start making another.

She’ll follow the Founder design, but I also know enough about
handmade work now to know that each one will inevitably have tiny
differences.

I’d be disappointed if they didn’t.

Why Only $80?

The Founder Nana is $80 delivered anywhere in
Australia, and that is deliberately far less than this
project actually cost me to develop.

I’m not pricing her that way because I think handmade work is worth
less. Quite the opposite.

This first collection has another purpose.

I want Nana to help people discover Nana’s Quest.

Every doll that leaves this camper takes the name with her. Someone
may see her sitting in a home and ask where she came from. That
person might visit Nana’s Quest and discover one of our vendors.
They might buy something from a maker they’d never encountered
before. Another maker might see the platform and decide there is
room for their work here too.

The doll is one little part of something I want to become much
bigger.

Nana’s Quest isn’t meant to be simply another page where people
upload handmade products.

There is a much bigger world I want to create around it. Stories.
Makers. Collections. Learning. Things to discover. A universe
people can actually enter rather than another endless grid of
products.

Nana is simply one of the first physical pieces of that world.

And after everything she put me through, I think she’s earned the
job.

Perhaps Nana Is Meant to Sit With You

I didn’t begin this project knowing whether anybody would buy one.
I still don’t know where all 25 will eventually go.

But I know something now that I didn’t know when I bought that
first pattern.

I can make her.

Not perfectly. Not without asking questions. Not without mistakes,
tears, a temperamental sewing machine, a mischievous dog and
occasionally telling my husband that the entire thing was
impossible.

But I can make her.

And perhaps that’s the most appropriate beginning Nana’s Quest
could have had.

Because craft isn’t about proving that you already know how to make
something.

Sometimes it’s simply about being willing to begin, learning from
the people and tools around you, making an absolute mess of it, and
trying again.

Twenty-five Founder Nanas will carry that story.

One has already left home.

And if you’ve lost a Nana, miss a Nana, need a Nana, are becoming a
Nana, or simply feel that one of these slightly stubborn little old
ladies belongs in your home, I’ll happily sit back down at that
temperamental sewing machine and make the next one for you.