Making Corn Dollies for the Autumn Equinox

We celebrated the equinox yesterday, the hinge of the season, as we go from the time when the day is longer than the night to the time when the night begins to rule the day. The girls helped me decorate the table, and we made harvest dollies out of corn husks. First I soaked the corn husks in warm water to soften them, and cut bunches of string into six inch pieces (or so) before Ailee got home from school:

Then we take a couple of husks and fold the top over and tie it. That makes the head. Then divide the lower part into arms and legs and tie them. The video below shows how to make the head part well.

If I have a chance later, I’ll make a video of how to make a corn husk doll myself.

But because our husks were soaked, its really easy to just pull the corn husks apart and tie strings around bits for arms and legs. Plus we tied on bits of hair and wings too for our fairy dolls. My favorite thing about soaking them first is that you get this wonderful curling of the bits of corn husk that makes it look so fey and autumn like.