Witchy Wonders 5, or "My Fabric Friends": Witches From My Childhood

This review features no fashion dolls and no photo art. Instead, this is my vehicle to talk about some important childhood treasures--all witches sewn from fabric.

One of the pillars of my childhood toy collection is the fantastic Folkmanis brand of puppets. Folkmanis is known for high-quality fabrics and some very inventive, accessible puppet engineering. The "folk" of the Folkmanis name comes into play with the way the card tags attached to the puppets typically cite pre-existing folktales and stories related to the concept of the puppet at hand.  Folkmanis has been a love of mine since I first discovered it, and I'll still get a puppet to this day if I see one I love, though I'm sad they've almost entirely abandoned humanoid fantasy puppets and are close to only doing animals now. I had a huge range of their puppets, and while I have fewer than I used to, I could dive into the ones I kept (and get back one or two I really shouldn't have let go) in another series. But my relationship with Folkmanis came down to the witches. And the first is one of my prized possessions.

When I was very little, my town had this classic pharmacy, the kind you'd call a proper "drugstore". This pharmacy did not last long at all into my childhood, probably because there was a Walgreens in the same vicinity. While it existed in my life, however, that little pharmacy gave me one of my first toy treasures. See, they sold Folkmanis puppets. And when I was about four, they sold a huge witch puppet. And I wanted her more than anything in the world. It's basically innate; I can't explain my witch obsession any further. I was born, and I was obsessed with witches from the get-go. I don't remember when I finally got the witch puppet, or why, but it was some wonderful spur of generosity from my parents, and not for any special occasion. I just vaguely remember toting her out of that pharmacy as happy as can be. She's been cherished ever since, and she's been out to celebrate every Halloween since her gotcha day, except for those few Halloweens in college, where I was in my dorms and had to make do without my decorations from home.

At the point I got the puppet, I named all of my toys for people I knew, and this witch took the name Jessica from a Jessica in my life.

Jessica Witch is part of a fairly broad format of Folkmanis puppets which are essentially child-size--toddler, at least. They were absolutely massive to me at the time, but the puppet herself is actually only about two feet tall. Other puppets in this style include...

A wizard (this concept had a few variants; I'm showing the model I used to own):

 I don't really miss this one.

There was a grandma and grandpa I never had:

A "mom" with changeable clothing also existed.

There was a Santa in the older batch--never had him:

Then there was a Pinocchio, who was a must given my childhood fascination with that story (oddly, I never once saw the classic Disney version until last year!)

This is honestly one of their coolest puppets, despite his fabric medium being so different from the wooden puppet he depicts! His knees were sewn like actual swinging puppet joints in two pieces, he had a velvet tongue you could petulantly stick out with a finger, and his nose is a separate piece that can be retracted and extended! I was never fully happy with my copy, whose mouth was sewn really unflatteringly, but this pictured copy looks good and I definitely want this puppet back if I can get him with a nice face. I think I got rid of my copy because he was done so ugly, and one of his sleeves getting a hole sealed the deal. Folkmanis Pinocchio celebrated a good few Christmases as a decoration.

Then there was a generic boy and girl, each with a couple of variants, but these are the ones I'm familiar with:

I owned the boy and named him Jack. I think I have an ancient birthday or Christmas wishlist where I printed a picture of the two and crossed the girl out to specify I was only asking for the boy. Sorry, girl. You didn't deserve that.

There was a charming gnome as well, which I gnever gnew about then:

Do I gneed him? Gnever say gnever.

There was a hobo clown, which was not a recent discovery for me, but I never wanted him, and still don't.

This puppet style also included some potentially iffy Romani representation with a fortune-teller and a fiddler. I don't know/remember if their card tags ever used the G-word, though their online product descriptions seen on Wayback Machine archives actually don't! I owned both, and given the possible concerns with their depiction and literal objectification, I'm fine not having either now.

My old copy of the fortune-teller, photo from 2015. Her hands velcro together in this pose, and the ball can come off with its own velcro piece.

Someone else's copy of the fiddler. His fiddle has a velcro piece that sticks it to his jawline and his accessories are not designed to come out of his hands.

Back to Jessica.

She's a very simple puppet, and has held up pretty well over time. Folkmanis puppet quality is not fully above reproach, as several of my puppets have aged or worn after twenty years or slightly fewer (depending on when I got them), but Jessica has no weaknesses in her quality and looks practically the same as new.

Jessica's hat and robe are made of unadorned black thin fleece, which attracts cat hair like a beast. The hat isn't stuffed and falls backward by default, though it's very easy to slide something into the hat between the brim and her head to make it stand upright. 

Jessica's hair is grey faux fur in a circular mane.

The puppet's face is the most remarkable part, I think. While this style of puppet had some mixed success with portraits, I think this witch came out very well. 

Her skin is greenish grey velour with excellent sewn definition to give her wrinkles, a heavy furrowed brow, and a clear jaw and chin. Her upper mouth has a bit of a cartoony Seussian "Who" effect, but it looks good. She has no eyebrows, and her eyes are plastic with fabric sclerae at the corners. The nose is not stuffed but doesn't look bad. The back of the nose is not open in the interior, so it would not be easily filled.

On the back of her head, Jessica has a big hand opening. Her only puppet mechanic here is to move her jaw, which is divided with a hinge/fold the hand grips the top and bottom of to open and close the mouth. The mouth doesn't move a great deal, and the effect is of the upper jaw moving, not the lower, but this is one of the better puppet mouths Folkmanis have sewn. The lining is dark orange fleece and there are no teeth.

Jessica's dress has nothing of note, but her legs are wonderful, giving her full red-and-black striped witchy tights and velvet shoes. 

Because there are no puppet controls inside her torso, the torso and legs are fully stuffed, and Jessica genuinely makes for a pretty great cuddly doll as such.

The main gimmick of these big puppets is that their arms are essentially sleeves with gloves, allowing the puppeteer to turn their arms into the puppet's with realistic dexterity in the hands!

The oldest puppets in this style, like the Santa, gnome, and older versions of the wizard, had mitten hands instead of five separated digits, so were less dextrous. Of the examples that were released during my childhood, Pinocchio and the Romani puppets are exceptions to the five-digit gloves. Pinocchio has narrow mitten hands which only smaller hands will fit into, while the Romani puppets' hands are flat fabric and the puppeteer's hands are stopped at the puppets' wrists.) These puppets are really optimized for a duo of performers, since both hands and the head can't be operated by one person simultaneously. Some of these had the hand aperture right on the back of the head like Jessica, while others had a sleeve on the back of the torso you slid your hand up, almost like putting your hand up the back of their shirt, to access the head. Folkmanis brought back this arm-glove puppeting style for a yeti they currently sell, though the Sasquatch alongside is a different art style and seems to only have facial animation, not arm puppetry.

The hands at the end of the sleeves are not sewn as fully separate hands with palms and wrists, almost as if the sleeves are hanging long over the hands. Dexterity in these puppets decreases with adulthood, and the gloves fit better on a kid, but it's still pretty incredible.

Jessica has always been a total treasure of mine, and she still makes me smile as much as she did then.

Here's the next witch on the list. I got her when I was about five, and named her Wendy. Not after anybody I knew this time. I had no Wendys in my life.

I was disappointed with her at first because the promotional photo made her dress look brown, and her face looked different. The broom is also a different design.

Much better face structure here!

Wendy is part of a different style of Folkmanis puppets with a medieval/fantasy theme. These puppets are hand-sized and smaller, and use doll hair with embroidered faces. There was a king, queen, princess, prince, knight, gnome, our witch, a wizard...and also a pirate, and I had them all. Some of these had two versions, with one being smaller finger puppets where each arm was an finger sleeve accessed from outside, like Jessica's sleeves. I'm showing pictures of "my" versions, the full hand puppets, first:

The king.

Finger-puppet king.

The princess.

Finger-puppet princess.

The prince.

Finger-puppet prince.

The queen.

Finger-puppet queen.

Okay, there is a little bit of photo art--this is the gnome, who I took to the lake this year for forest photos!

The gorgeous wizard. I need him back!!!

The knight. I never really liked him, but somehow had two copies. The helmet is sewn-on normally.

And the pirate was...here.

Now, while it was okay at the time, the choice for these puppets to use fashion-doll-esque hair is their downfall over time, as the fibers have aged horribly. I think the queen and the phoenix from this era had lovely hair new, but my phoenix today has gone fried, sadly, and the queen probably wouldn't fare any better. I think the only reason I ever got rid of the wonderful wizard was his hair being ruined by time. One good thing about the smaller counterparts of the hand puppets in this series is that they used yarn or chenille hair instead, and that's got to hold up just fine. The Wayback Machine indicates the smaller versions actually preceded the hand puppets I got, which seems like a backslide. I'd expect the yarn-hair versions to be the second editions! I kind of wish the witch had a finger-puppet version free of hair troubles!

Granted, the witch probably isn't meant to be considered the same series as the royals, because she, the wizard, the gnome, and even the knight, are constructed with more sculpted faces which feature plastic eyes. The princess, prince, king, and queen all have fully-embroidered eyes and they're the only four to have two alternate versions. The pirate debuted in the style of the second-edition royals.

Wendy's hat is small with a stuffed cone. It's trimmed by a scratchy orange ribbon trim, with plastic fibers that fray and pull out.

The doll's hair is three colors--red, black, and white. The fiber is atrocious today, but has been a problem for over ten years, I think. I remember trying to fix it back in my original doll collection, and I think I cut some of the hair off at some point. Maybe there was more white originally and I tried to get rid of it for some reason?

This hair was tied in a ponytail originally, but that wouldn't have helped much. Wendy needs a new 'do.

The face sewing feels messy on mine, and lacking in the structure it needs.

Wendy has a tanned fabric skintone and embroidery for her sclerae, wart, and eyebrows, but she, the wizard, knight, and gnome have more sculpted faces than the second-edition royals I owned. The biggest issues with my witch are that her nose and chin look collapsed and her ears are too obviously two layers of fabric which are not attached.

Wendy has a pink velvet mouth and three blocky teeth, also made of layers which are not secured.

This is not a glamor girl, but she still needs cosmetic procedures. 

Wendy's robe is all sewn to her, of course, and features trailing strips of fabric hanging from the arms and forming the hem, while the scratchy ribbon trims the front side of her waist. The fraying of the unfinished fabric is not unwelcome here.

In Wendy's right hand, a broom is sewn. The stick is structured enough to not be bendy and floppy, while the end is furry and looks more like a duster than the yarn broom in the promo photo...which, granted, looked more like a mop! Wendy's cleaning house somehow--just not the way a witch typically does.

Wendy's legs are made of the same material as the broomstick, and are similarly firm. A knee bend is subtly sewn that allows the legs to flex realistically, but the knees are not floppy and only bend when manipulated to do so. They don't hold the shape, either. The feet use a sequin-style fabric and are stuffed with pellets that make them heavier.

Wendy's internal torso is basically a flat envelope you slide your hand in from the bottom, and her head and hands are where you put your fingers to animate her. Again, this puppet feels optimized for smaller hands, so it's a little awkward to puppet her today. The head can also fold a bit on the jawline to work the mouth a bit by pulling the top half down.

To make over Wendy, I had to get her bald. I'm not sure how the hair was rooted in, because I couldn't detect the other side of the hair roots from inside the puppet head. That would have made it easier to yank out the roots from the interior, but in lieu of that plan, I resorted to close cutting and then shaving the doll with electric clippers to get rid of the hair as much as I could. This revealed a netted section, perhaps from a wig, but I wasn't going to unstitch this doll to fix her, because I'd never get her back to herself.

I glued the panels of her ears together with fabric glue, and stuffed her nose and jaw as best I could. I prepared some unraveled macrame cord in the correct colors to replace her hair. When trying to squeeze some fabric glue to place the first application, however, too much glue came out, too quickly, and I had to immediately rinse the puppet out and hang her up to dry. I'll be putting glue on a palette first now before dabbing it on with a brush or Q-tip!

Here's the replacement hair.

My third witch is, I believe, the third I got, but I coveted her for a time. This is, in every aspect, a miniaturized and simplified version of Jessica, designed for one hand as a finger puppet!

I learned about this puppet because my local library was well-supplied with Folkmanis in their children's section, and while I don't think they had Jessica, they did have the mini version! When I finally got mine, I named her Carolyn.

Carolyn uses the same materials as Jessica and adapts her mechanics to a smaller scale.

Because Carolyn is small, her hat stands up unstuffed quite easily. Carolyn can fit inside Jessica's hat to stand hers up!

Carolyn's face is simplified, but still has good character. She does not have an opening mouth, but there's a seam where her mouth is implied. Her eyes lack the sclera detail of the big puppet.

Carolyn's mechanics are the same, more or less. One finger plugs into the back of her head, and two fill the sleeves that are her arms. 

She has mitten hands and you can't display any dexterity with them, but it's cool that she basically works the same.

Carolyn's hips are less floppy than Jessica's, but she'll stay seated if you want her to sit as long as something is propped up against her back. Her tights are the same in material and appearance.

I think of my trio, Jessica is my favorite. The novelty of her dexterity is still fun, even though it's not perfect and I've probably aged out of operating her to best results. Jessica is also the most significant story out of the three.

There are two other Folkmanis witches. One was a puppet I owned--this "stage puppet" witch with no legs, but a long dress. I didn't keep her because I came to find her unappealing. Her eyebrows were too short.

I might be having second thoughts now!

The last witch I think they've made was this tiny hand puppet. I was too old by the time she released and she was way too small for my hands when I encountered her in a store...but she was also not interesting enough to get.

My other vital collection of childhood witches came from the Woof & Poof brand of decor dolls.

The brand is named for the weaving term "woof" ("weft" is synonymous) and "pouf", as in a fabric ottoman or cushion. Woof & Poof was an odd thing to become so formative for me. They were a manufacturer of relatively fancy fabric decor, most known for their seasonal decor dolls which share a distinctive art style. Some of the dolls are like beanbags, some are firmly stuffed like pillows, with some dolls having music boxes inside and others which hang from doorknobs, as well as several of the shelf-sitter variety too. Some of the output of Woof & Poof adapted their dolls to hollow legless sleeves used as wine bottle covers, though I'd 100% have used them as hand puppets if I had them, even if the arms were closed off. The dolls are typically sewn in the fairly 2D style of classic rag dolls, with flat faces that are embroidered rather than being fabric-sculpted heads, and the dolls gain their decor vibe with fancy patterned fabrics and different types of cord or decorative fiber giving hair to the characters. The clothes are never removable, since most of the time, the only layering effect you get is a skirt over the body and/or legs. Sometimes, the body is dress-shaped and the feet just attach to the lower edge of the dress/body instead. Woof & Poof made the kind of things that felt visually optimized for a ritzy mom's home decor, so I wasn't the target audience. But I latched onto them because I went to the garden center and saw sweet green witches and couldn't leave without one. For a few years in the early 2000s, it was a yearly ritual to see what new things Woof & Poof released for Halloween until their visibility dropped off and I never saw them in-person, while their witches, on my end, seemed to dwindle and their style slightly shifted for the worse, with simplified one-fabric limbs on the dolls. Meanwhile, Woof & Poof's Christmas output has also supplied a small collection to my family--maybe I can introduce them later. Since 2015, the company has been defunct and until this year, the most recent witch acquisition was in 2007. Even that feels generous. 

I'm not sure where the Woof & Poof output laid on a scale of "every design is codified and mass-produced" and "every piece is one of a kind". Several dolls are easy to find in multiple different resell listings and I found a few of my own online. Others, I have no proof existed in multiples, and I've seen some cases of minor detail changes on otherwise identical dolls across copies.

The first witch I got from Woof & Poof was this squat girl with gold and black herringbone stripes for her body/dress fabric. She's quite representative of Woof & Poof's style. I named this one Sarah as a kid.

One thing about the Woof & Poof dolls that I remember is that they all had a pleasant smell when new. I don't know if they were intentionally fragranced somehow, and it wasn't something I'd describe as a perfume, but they had a nice subtle scent that was purely theirs--not something I ever smelled elsewhere. Now, it's been so long that my old dolls no longer exhibit this trait.

Unlike my Folkmanis witches, it's easy to tell my Woof & Poof girls are old and very loved. Case in point--the hat.

Most of the Woof & Poof witches have similar witch hats of black felt which roughens up with age. Especially in this early period, the brims are turned up and are basically all decorated with a gold glittered plastic brooch of a crescent moon.

...that's not a picture of Sarah. I was propping Sarah up for her photos when I suddenly realized her moon had fallen off. No problem, right? Must have fallen off in storage. I checked my personal Halloween bins. Then I checked the trunk I had moved Halloween out of. I also checked my bedroom-Christmas bin--long story short, my grandma had sewn multiple seasonal costumes for Sarah and her twin I'll be getting to very shortly, and the witches' Christmas hats being shoved over the witch hats could have maybe caused an issue. 

But I also thought to check old photos to confirm when the moon's loss could have happened. 

And in 2024, Sarah did not have her moon.

There's no moon in this picture, either.

The Folkmanis stage puppet I got rid of is pictured here. This witch collection feels quaint compared to what I have now!

That picture was taken in 2015. That's a whole house ago. And I know the moon wouldn't have been on the other side of the brim in this photo; all of them were attached in the same place. In eleven years at least, I have never registered that Sarah lost her moon. It's gone. I know I would remember finding the moon somewhere and I would have made sure it was reattached if I did. And I wouldn't have been surprised this year if I was used to the moon being missing and knew the whole time. I can't have ever realized and forgot I did! I just don't understand how I failed to notice. Maybe I did the bad thing with twins where I assume one twin's trait must be shared by the other. Sarah's sister had her moon, so surely Sarah did too...

I feel awful. Sure, it's a stupid plastic charm with glitter that probably didn't hold up even before its loss, but the moons were the witches' signature and their family symbol in my perception of their characters. These witches are so special to me, and it kills me to have had this happen for so long. I've loved Sarah just the same without even realizing the moon was gone, which is honestly the way it should be. I passed the test. But now that I've noticed, I want to put it right somehow.

I did happen to get a vintage ceramic moon brooch recently that needed a witch to wear it, so this could be fate--Sarah was waiting patiently all this time...

I'm not sold on the result, though. It's too big to be placed where the original moon was (the threaded piece holding the charm is still in the brim!) and the colors don't go.

It's not beyond the pale for a Woof & Poof girl, but Sarah's not the one, and it would better suit a chest placement for a witch without a button or brooch there of her own.

I got another idea when I saw a singular Woof & Poof witch copy online who had a silver star brooch in her hat instead of a moon. That could be the right way to re-complete Sarah: get a star button and glitter it silver so she has something that feels like a match, but won't read as a failure to be exact in the way it would if I tried to use a moon button from another source. I could always harvest from another witch, and I've seen another Sarah online, but I don't want to be wasteful and get a Woof &Poof I don't need...and replacing Sarah is out of the question. Then it won't be Sarah. She's that kind of special to me. A star would also be a good mirror to her twin sister, giving each her own complementary symbol.

Sarah's hair is pieces of shiny twisted cord in black, suggesting braids or ringlets by abstraction. These looked more like cord when new, but they've relaxed and frayed over the many years to the point that they look more like hair now. There's certainly enough fibers per twist to make for realistic hair.

Sarah's construction is a wedge shape which widens from the head down, and she's sewn basically flat with a dress-shaped body and feet (with no legs above them) attached to the bottom. Sarah is a looser-stuffed doll with beanbag pellet weighting in her bottom half. The herringbone pattern is only present in the gold stripes, while the black stripes are unpatterned.

The majority of the witches have this kind of face and color--a pale pistachio green with an embroidered expression signature to the simple charm of the Woof n Poof faces. Sarah has narrow black dot eyes, a nose, and a wiggly red mouth.

This is appealing to me in a way giant heads and huge glossy rainbow eyes could never ever hope to be. Simplicity is charm.

Going off the other Sarah I've seen on eBay, my doll might have originally had a black tulle bow around her neck. The earliest documentation I could find of my Woof & Poof witches was from 2015, as childhood pictures by my mom missed a lot of Halloween, and the witches never showed up. Below her neck, Sarah has a silver grooved brooch with a clear stone in the middle. I think these dolls gave me a fascination with fancy buttons and brooches, and for a time, I got some from craft stores with visions of adorning things with them. That fascination hasn't fully lasted, but I still appreciate a good piece of jewelry and tend to eye the buttons and charms at the craft store in case they give me ideas.

Sarah's arms are like any rag doll's, thin at the shoulder and able to swing back and forth at their attachment. Her hands match her face with the arms being two fabrics. The latest I've seen two-fabric Woof & Poof arms with delineated hands is 2010, but I feel like, at that point, it was far more common for arms to be a single fabric.

The feet are black witch boots, and they formed the biggest problem--they were pleather. Not high-gloss plastic-effect pleather, but the "realistic" kind that gets really sticky and gross when it peels. My witches are all peeled now, but it wasn't fun to discover the decayed material. I think I peeled my witches between 2022 and 2024 when I finally realized the damage.

The signature branding these dolls included was a stamped metal button sewed on the back of every doll as a durable label that completely fits the aesthetic.

These buttons also changed by year to accurately date the dolls, which is fantastic. Sarah is dated to 2004, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the year I got her. My mom suggested these were discovered by me in 2003 or 2004. 2003 feels definitely too early, and Sarah's date proves she couldn't have been mine any earlier than '04. I'm not sure if I got her the year before her sister or if Sarah was backstock purchased in 2005. 

We've talked about this sister enough times; bring her in! This doll is essentially the same template as Sarah, just with different fabrics, and she never had a torso brooch. I named this doll Lucy, I believe after the Peanuts character. While I loved Lucille Ball and her character Lucy Ricardo, I think I was making an association to the black hair of Lucy Van Pelt. 

In my mind, Lucy is Sarah's twin sister. Lucy is dated to 2005.

Lucy is lucky enough to still have her moon, but it's seen better days, as shown.

Lucy's hair and face are functionally identical to Sarah's, with only manufacturing variance and variable hair fraying setting them apart.

I added the bow seen here around Lucy's neck to give her a little something extra, but she's been bare-necked and broochless for most of the time I've had her. I don't remember if she had a ribbon around her neck which I discarded. 

Lucy's body fabric is good black satin with embroidered silvery polka-dots which blur a shade between silver and gold. Her sleeves are black velvet, not the same material as Sarah's.

I like Lucy, but I like Sarah and Lucy most as a unit. They've been the twins for a long time, and I'd be heartbroken to lose one or the other.

My grandma built a parallel witch collection at the time. She got a doll who has the same basic build as Sarah and Lucy. Her name completely vanished from my memory, but when scrolling through baby names to try to figure it out, "Emily" pinged a sense of recognition more strongly than other names, so tentatively, I think Emily is correct.

Looks like Grandma added the orange bow. The ribbon is also featured on the black cat in this image, which she crocheted, so Emily's ribbon can't be originally from Woof & Poof.

Next, I got this taller doll, who I call Elizabeth. 

Her arms are strangely folded forward at the shoulder because this is one of those door-hanger dolls built to have her arms above her head. 

I've seen Elizabeths online with orange bows around their necks and black bows connecting their hands into a loop for a doorknob hanging, but I could swear my Elizabeth had a broom in her hands that I insisted on removing instead. 

All other documentation of Elizabeths look like this. (eBay photo by user Yuletide Cottage.)

I might be blurring memories with a Raggedy Andy doll who had a lollipop or other stick glued between his hands, which I also removed, but I really feel like my Elizabeth had a broom, not a bow. Maybe I'm wrong. My grandma has an Elizabeth, and I do remember her name: Marina. I think Marina looks like the other Elizabeths.

Elizabeth's moon is pristine.

Elizabeth has a firmly-stuffed tall narrow body, but the same face, hat, and hair as Sarah and Lucy. I decided she's the twins' older sister, and more quiet and awkward.

I added the green bow to her just recently. It suits her better than orange.

Elizabeth has a very humble olive sewing button as decoration on her chest.

The fabric on Elizabeth's arms is the same as Emily's dress above. Elizabeth's body and legs are the same fabrics as Sarah's sleeves and dress, with the gold herringbone turned sideways for long witchy-striped socks. The benefit of actual legs is the witch tights!

Here's Elizabeth's separated hands with the glue that once fixed them together around something.

Here's Elizabeth's marker button.

Her left leg was coming detached with the fabric unraveling and slipping stitches, so I finally repaired it, kind of, with some amateur stitching to at least reaffix and tighten the leg. She's not polished or symmetrical, but at least it's not going to fall off now.

Need for surgery diagnosed.

Here's the three sisters together.

My last witch for ages was from 2006, one of the later years of two-fabric arms. Not long after her, the dolls started shifting to skinnier limbs and arms made of only one fabric. I liked this doll for her wild red hair and her silver dress in its flipped contour, so different from the wedge-shaped witches. I called her Wanda, and characterized her as the glamorous aunt.

This might be another doll missing neck trim, or maybe my copy never had one. Wanda is the doll I saw with a variant that has a star brooch instead of a moon:

Honestly, this Wanda feels more cohesive than my own. The silver star coordinates the hat and dress together in a way my Wanda's costume doesn't, and the neck bow also helps her out a lot. Maybe Wanda needs the star brooch idea instead, plus a bow, and I could transfer her moon over to Sarah. I'm getting a star button for somebody regardless, but putting it toward imitating this other copy of Wanda while the moon transfers to Sarah might be the actual move.

Wanda's hat and face are familiar, and her moon is pristine, but her hair is "redhead" orange loops of thread and cord in a curly effect. 

She has a shiny fabric-coated orange button brooch.

Wanda's body plan is a special shape with downward-spread arms and a long skinny dress that flips out in a crescent shape at the bottom. She's taller and skinnier than the twins, but smaller than Elizabeth. Her body is a shiny silver fabric that's honestly not pleasant to touch. It's a very whooshy material that would be a nightmare to walk in as pants because of the swiping noises the legs would make when they brushed each other. 

Here's Wanda's button. It's a more silver color than the previous witches', but that suits her.

I used to be enthralled by Wanda for how different she felt from the sisters, but she's become my least favorite over time because I've come to see her as incohesive. I think my mission really will be to dress her up like the alternate copy I saw online with a star brooch and black neck trim, and give her moon to Sarah. That way, I'll fix both dolls.

The last Halloween Woof & Poof doll in the family, prior to this year, is part of my grandma's collection, and I've always been a little envious. She has a Woof & Poof vampire in a chic orange and black costume, and the doll is also a music box. I've always called this one the witches' Cousin Opal, and since Grandma decided Opal was a witch, she is. She's just a vampire too.

The exposure on this 2015 photo is awful, but her embroidered fangs can be made out. She's from the era of monofabric arms. She has (or may not, at this point) black glossy pleather "shoes" that are just the end of her nub legs--not boot-shaped.

I adore Opal. 

It's just not Halloween for me without my Woof & Poof witches, and in the years of college campus life when they were stuck at home, I still decorated my space with them in the form of interpretive drawings lending them more detailed and distinct concepts. These are my most recent passes, ca. 2019 or 2020. I never drew Emily and Marina. I never saw fit to define their relation to the others because I never saw them as distinct enough from the twins and Elizabeth. You can tell I'm most enchanted by Opal!

Now, I came back to Woof & Poof this year because I found one I'd never heard of--a big witch, bigger than I've collected from them...with a 3D face.

I'm dearly attached to the standard design, but I didn't hate this alternate style of face and I had to admit, the size and shaping of this doll made me curious if she felt more like a proper rag doll, and even if she was cuddly.

The big witch is going to be named Hortense. Naturally, she has to be the witch family grandma.

I did some work on Hortense before presenting her for photographs. I opened the underside of her nose to stuff it firm, as the tip of her nose was totally empty as she arrived to me. The package also included a velvet and orange-satin piece of fabric which could only be a cape, totally loose in the box. It seemed original to the doll, matching and fitting her well, though I've seen at least one other listing of this doll without any evidence of a cape, and the cape wasn't pictured in the listing I myself chose. There was no definite indication of how it was formerly attached to her, so I took a guess and sewed it to her neck bow, which might theoretically make it removable by untying the bow. There was some appeal to Hortense sans cape, but its orange lining balances the highlight of orange at her beltline, and the drapery of the cape suits her more elderly appearance.

I was surprised to catch the barest hint of the familiar "Woof & Poof perfume" on Hortense which my long-term dolls had all lost since I got them. I'd missed that.

Hortense's hat is the same felt as ever, but is trimmed with a more metallic-looking moon brooch, which is more pleasant than the glitter ones of her smaller kin. A ribbon also trims the hat.

Hortense's hair is a loose black thin cord material. I loved the material Sarah, Lucy, Emily, Elizabeth, and Marina used, but it unravels and frays over time. Cord and thread like Wanda and Hortense have stays the same. 

Hortense's face is the same green as the other witches I've shown, but the head is mostly sculptural instead of ragdoll-flat and fully-embroidered--no embroidery at all is featured, actually. She has black dome button eyes, and her head is sewn with a pronounced nose and an equally curved-up chin. In profile, you could read an open mouth in her expression, though no mouth is defined whatsoever.

I could see this face as feeling a bit weird or creepy in its blankness, but I think the simplicity of the bead eyes gives the face a lot of endearing charm and applicability, where you can project and read into the face in any way you want. It's a different charm, but it's charming.

Hortense has a more layered costume that most Woof & Poof dolls, and is the only one I've encountered who could feasibly be undressed, as her costume is separate layering. She has full separate arms and torso under her shirt/skirt costume. 

The cape is a velourish velvet on the outside, black, and orange/gold color-shifting textured shiny material on the inside.

Hortense has a dotted sheer black-and-white bow around her neck, to which I attached the cape. She has a long-sleeved lime green shirt made of a satiny material, and her skirt is the same dotted-embroidery satin as Lucy's dress. A line of orange matching the cape trims the waist. She uses the same striped fabric as Sarah's dress, in the same manner as Elizabeth/Marina's legs, interpreting the material as witchy striped tights. 

Viewing these witches as family when they share so many fabrics and faces makes a lot of sense to me.

And yeah, Hortense is big!

Family not to scale.

Hortense's shoes were formerly pleather-coated, but it's clear her previous owner peeled them when they broke down.

Here's a look at the fuzzy black buttons on her shirt.

Hortense could not be characterized as a cuddle doll despite her size. She is firmly stuffed except for the places where her limbs attach (and the tip of her nose as she arrived). Her body is flatter than I thought it would be, sewn from two panels in an "envelope" shape like the smaller witches. Her button is on the body under the skirt.

Water staining, nothing dangerous.

There does appear to be at least one other doll Woof & Poof designed like Hortense:

I can skip this one.

There was a 2012 witch plush with a built-in music box bringing back Hortense's dimensional face style, and I do kind of like this one:

I'm happy with Hortense for now, though.

My order for Hortense was a bundle listing "w/friend"--the friend being a Halloween-appropriate Woof & Poof doll who was not explicitly a witch. I think my choice of listing was correct, since I not only got the cape for Hortense, but I also really like the friend! 

I decided to call her Jillian.

Jillian is dated to 2007, sharing the silver button color Wanda used.

Jillian is a long girl with a skinny shape and she has a lot of fun physicality. Her torso is also pretty soft and floppy in a pleasant way, so she feels built to step and strut and sway like an exaggerated fashion model. She has a beanbag butt, but feels the most like a classic rag doll of any of my Woof & Poofs.

What a diva.

Jillian's head is bare and she has hair sewn into the top seam of her head, which is thin strips of black velvet. The back panel of her head is the black fabric used for Sarah and Elizabeth, done so she doesn't look bald.

Jillian's skintone is hard to convey. It's not the witch green of the previous dolls, but it's not white or tan. It's a yellower, paler slightly greenish hue. She has the same face model as the witches, with a wiggly "spooky" mouth, suggesting she's something not human. Her head is rounded.

I don't really know who she is to me, though. She could be another sister in the core witch family, maybe one who's decided not to be a witch; the rebel to Elizabeth's strait-laced traditionalist. Or she could be Opal's daughter and also a cousin, seeing as she matches Opal's colors more? I'm actually leaning toward Jillian being the older sister who broke all expectations while Elizabeth is the older sister who upholds them, thus leaving two paths for the twins to potentially follow when they grow up. Whatever Jillian is, she's just Jillian and that's cool. She can be a Halloween icon without any labels. And we can say she takes her orange from her granny Hortense.

Jillian's costume seems to be a long-sleeved short dress, perhaps influenced by 1960s cuts. The material is hairy and orange with a wacky feel, and thin plastic discs on beads hang at the neck under a separate black bow, all black. The bow is a little large and obstructive, but it's fine. 

A black velvet belt with a witchy buckle trims Jillian's waist, and her legs are flat black and end in a boot shape--the shoe portion, like with Hortense, has been peeled of degraded pleather.

I did not expect to love Jillian so much, but I think she rocks. Drawing her, I focused on the wild motion of her hair strips, and gave her face a bit of a 1920s-glam influence while her costume is possibly sixties and her hair is Lydia Deetz amplified. She's a lot of aesthetics!

I went ahead and did the fixes for Sarah and Wanda, swapping Wanda's moon to Sarah, who needed it more, and giving Wanda a silver star brooch that coordinated. I couldn't find any star buttons, so I sanded down a plastic star gem, repainted it, and glued a wire loop to the back so I could sew it on. I also added a bow to Wanda's neck.

I thought I was done here, but then...I finally got to thinking about one missing piece. For years, I'd never addressed or resolved just who the mother was in this family unit I'd headcanoned. Sure, some kids don't have moms growing up, but why shouldn't my witches? With an aunt and a granny, I was curious to see if any Woof & Poof witch could fill the gap in the family tree. 

I think I found her. Meet Yvonne.

Now, Yvonne was the most difficult witch by far. First off, her order took a long time to ship and arrive. And she was also in rough condition and required both cleanup and some editorializing to make her more presentable.

Yvonne's felt hat is a different, less fleecy material than her daughters', and had no brooch on it. I sewed on the gold piece myself because I thought she needed it. Theoretically, she should have a moon just like the others, and maybe she will someday, but for now, I thought this looked good. 

Yvonne's hair is very much like Jillian's, which is part of why I picked her. Her skin is a yellower, darker green than the other witches, though the face is the same style. 

Yvonne's costume is a stretchy black and gold knit dress with either a knotted collar or a separate matching scarf around the neck. It's sewn as a separate scarf piece, but looks seamless with the collar. The material has some wild threads at the edges of the sleeves and hem. A black velvet layer is underneath at the bottom. Yvonne has a belt around her waist, as well as a chain-strap purse around her shoulder, crossbody. The bag itself doesn't open, but it has a nice pumpkin charm. 

In addition to her boots, Yvonne had horribly peeling pleather on the bag and the belt too, so she needed a lot of cleaning. The belt wasn't actually sewn down, so it could be slid up her body to take it off and scrub. The bag was scrubbed, but there was a purple paint mark right on the front that I couldn't hide.

To fix this, I disconnected the purse, which was glued between scarf and dress to the doll's neck, sewed the dress and scarf back in place, and cut off the pumpkin charm so I could reattach it to the chain with a jump ring. I did all of this so I could...simply flip the purse so the purple mark was hidden on the back side. Because there was a spot on the top with a glue mark visible on the "good side", I sewed the gold button there to hide that, then sewed the chain back into place.

Yvonne's legs are ochre with a wave pattern. I found them too long for her proportions, so I used safety pins to hold them down at a folded "shortened" position.

That's a lot of work, but the result is good. I think Yvonne works in the family unit. She particularly resembles a mix of "older daughters" Elizabeth and Jillian. 

Remember: not to scale!

The green and black palette and green skin are like Elizabeth, while the velvet hair strips and chic clothing suit Jillian, and both girls are tall and skinny like her. The witch's colors suit all of her daughters except Jillian, my rebel, and she looks very much like she could be a mother figure while being sister to Wanda, another witch mixing classic and modern chic. I might be modeling my perception of motherhood after my own mom, who has always been very stylish. Also, Yvonne is just kind of an icon. 

I don't have Opal, but I can be happy with this!

Don't ask me who the men in this family are. As far as I know, there are no men in this family. Woof & Poof hasn't provided any essential male candidates to fold into this little world of mine. Maybe I'll keep checking in as listings change and add more witches I haven't seen into consideration. There was actually one witch who "got away" by the time October rolled around...and then she popped back up. I couldn't get her in time for this post, nor did I want to strain my budget, but as soon as she's available and I'm comfortable getting her, she's mine. Woof & Poof and I aren't over!

These witches are all pretty sentimental, even the new acquisitions, because they tie into the witches who were so precious to my childhood. It would be easy to call them favorites in the whole Witchy Wonders project purely because none of the others could hope to mean as much to me.

Witchy Wonders will be continuing and concluding at breakneck speed as my final review under this label drops for Halloween, followed by a conclusion post. See you soon.