Magical Fabric Field Trip

There is magic in dolls and bears, and if they want to, they are not shy about sparkling their way into things...
Today bink & I, three dolls and a bear took a field trip to the 157-y.o. Faribault Woolen Mills, an hour south, and there the dolls and bear charmed a manager into giving them a whole bunch of wool remnants for free! The mill doesn’t even  sell them—she went into the back and chose out beautiful scraps for them—some large enough to make a short scarf for a human.

ABOVE: Red Bear, left, wears a golden milk & scavenger gray scarf, while Penny Cooper is wrapped in a scrapyard navy sweater, constructed from a strip of wool.

Then the girlettes charmed me into letting one of them go LIVE with the manager because she has a sister named Madeline and the sisters love the Madeline book.
I could stand--just barely-- to part with the most recent girlette, One Shoe, who was hopping to go. "Me, me! Choose me!"
(Penny Cooper would never leave the Orphan Pod.)
The manager seemed genuinely thrilled.

I've become interested in wool blankets, of all things. It started when I did a kids book on the French and Indian War (ten years ago?). Researching it, I ran into all sorts of fascinating history of fabrics, which were a big trade good, both directions. (Fur is considered a fabric, "from Latin fabrica ‘something skillfully produced’".)

Then, old wool blankets get donated to the store, and they attract me, like the holy medals on safety pins I posted yesterday---intimate objects that help people who love them feel safe with them close to their bodies.