I decided to step away from the Ethiopian angels idea for a while and the doll I made this week is inspired in an Ethiopian singer I admire.
I already talked about Meklit Hadero, before, and I wanted to create my next doll based on her. I have to clarify, that this is not an “action figure” type doll, only one loosely based on Meklit’s looks.
I don’t know her in person, but from her pictures and her music, she looks like a luminous person. She is beautiful and talented and I hope I made a good homage to her personality.
One thing that immediately draws your attention is the way she styles her hair with a big flower adorning her afro. That’s the look I wanted in my doll. I even made her a guitar with balsa wood and thread as strings!
This is my first more conventional looking doll and I’m quite pleased with the results.
We bought a light tent to be able to take better pictures of small objects like this doll.
The doll, which I named Meskerem (spring), is made with cotton fabric, sari type fabric for the dress and boucle yarn for the afro. Her facial features are hand drawn directly onto the fabric. She is approximately 22 inches tall (she’s seating in the photo) and I made the guitar at scale.

AliciA