How to Make Cattail Dolls

It was a cool spring day in the Rockies. I was making a fish trap out of willows to feed myself for the next few days as I camped along a nameless tributary.

As I sat weaving, the chickadees that kept me company as I wove my trap gave their alarm call indicating a predator on the ground moving toward us.

A bear I figured. Crap. I’d seen plenty of bears on this trip and they weren’t interested in me at all. But, there was no reason to push my luck.

I moved away from the stream and hid, figuring I’d let the bear pass and finish my trap.

Silently, appearing out of nowhere wasn’t a bear, but an old woman. She was barefoot, wearing a deerskin cloak over tattered jeans and a worn white blouse.

She squatted down out of my sight to investigate the area where I had been making my trap. When she stood up again, she was looking directly at me.

I had no idea how she knew exactly where I was hiding in the thicket, she never even looked around.

I walked down and introduced myself to Starlight Laughter, one of the most interesting people I’ve met in my travels.

We spent that day and the next together feeding butterflies (I’m not kidding, she showed me how to feed butterflies out of your hand), making baskets, collecting wild edible plants, and she taught me how to make cattail dolls.

There is spirit in these cattail dolls she told me, and they need to be made with love. The first one you make should always be given away and you should think about and feel whoever you’re making it for. She told me the love would transfer through the doll to its recipient.

I gave my first cattail figurine to the place we met. It held onto an alder branch along the bank, sharing the joy I had in meeting Starlight Laughter.

That was my introduction to making the cattail doll you see here. I have changed them a bit over time to make it easier for beginners and more human-like, but this is essentially the same cattail doll I learned to make that day years ago.

I hope you love making these cat tail dolls and the people you share them with enjoy them as well.

I have a book on Amazon on how to make cattail dolls that goes into more detail, but this will post here will get you started!

If you decide you want the book, you can find it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B6R7RVM/

Choosing Cat Tail Leaves for Your Doll

The best time of year to harvest cattail is in the fall right when the leaves go from green to brown. But, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. It’s possible to make cat tail figurines from the leaves of older plants as long as they haven’t rotted too much. And you can harvest the green leaves in late summer through fall and just let them dry.

Making the Head of Your Cattail Doll

To make the head of your cat tail doll, start with by putting a rock in the middle of the widest leaf you have. Then wrap around the rock with other leaves until the rock is buried.

Tie off the doll right below the head using a waist knot. That will form the head and body core of your doll.

How to Make Arms for Your Cattail Doll

Next you’ll need to make the doll’s arms. You do this by twisting supple cattail leaves toward the center of the fibers. The twist you use here is the same way you’d make string from nettles, dogbane, milkweed or other fibrous plant.

Once your arms are done, slide them up your cattail doll and place leaves over the shoulders of your doll until the figurine has enough girth.

Cut the bottoms of your cattails off so they are about 7 times the length of the doll’s head.

Then you will tie another waist knot about half way down your doll to make the waist.

Your basic cattail doll is done at this point, and this is where the fun really begins…

Personalizing The Cattail Dolls You Make

Your cattail doll has perfect hands for holding things and you can make lots of cool stuff for your doll to make it perfect for you… or for a gift.

Here are some things I like to add;

Brooms
Any straight twig or branch will do for the handle. To make the broom, fold a few leaves in half and shove the stick through the middle of the leaves. Lash the leaves to the stick with a waist knot. Use the tip of a knife to make bristles on the broom.

Sword, Spears, Axes, and Knives.
Whittle these out of wood.

Bows
Start with a twig and shape it into a bow. You can give your bow a lot of detail by carving an arrow rest on the bow. Make a nock at one end of the bow to hold the string and tie the string to the other end of the bow.

Arrows
The very end of male cattail stalk, above the seeds where the pollen used to be makes great arrows. You can split the stalk and slide a tiny piece of birch bark into the split for fletching. You can hold the fletching on by wrapping thread or sinew above the fletching.
Willow twigs are also great for arrows.

Quiver
Any pithy plant works well for your quiver. Cow parsnip, multiflora rose, and raspberry are my favorites. For arrows in the quiver you can make short arrows and stick them into the pith.

Grappling Rope
Use cattail, nettle, milkweed, dogbane or other good fiber plant to make a long rope out of. You can also make small pieces of cordage for the strap on quivers or to hold swords and knives on your cattail doll.

You can get full instructions in my book on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B6R7RVM/.

If you enjoy outdoor crafts, you might also like my post on making birch bark baskets.