Rubens Barn is a brand of handmade Swedish cloth dolls that have recently made their way to the United States. At first, I thought that the name of the brand was Ruben's Barn--meaning a guy named Ruben had a barn, and the dolls were in it. Actually, barn means "children" in Swedish, and "Rubens" is possessive without the apostrophe, so the dolls are "Ruben's Children." These dolls can be found at Magic Cabin, and also on Amazon. They cost $25.
I could look at the cutes faces on the Rubens Barn website for a long time. The larger babies are fantastic, but my favorite dolls are in the Linné collection, a new group of babies that are dressed in outfits that represent something from nature. There's a bluebird, a bumblebee, a butterfly and even a pinecone. I almost bought the pinecone doll, because a pinecone is Maine's state flower--even though pinecones aren't flowers. I think we're the only state in the nation that has a seed as its state flower.
After looking closely at all of the dolls, it was Moss who I couldn't resist. This fellow is not only lovable, but he might be the only doll ever in the history of the world that is made to look like moss:
 |
| Rubens Barn Linné doll, "Moss." |
