Staff Writer

ONEONTA —Doll aficionados liken their hobby to catching a "bug," or eating peanuts - once you start, you can't stop.

That's because doll-makers have to master many talents, explained instructor Elizabeth Wilson, such as sewing, cobbling and painting.

"There's so many skills in making dolls," Wilson said. "I kind of think that's why the bug gets you."

The Doll Artisan Guild's 26th annual festival and doll show in Oneonta got under way Thursday at Hartwick College's Dewar Hall, a new venue for the event, according to DAG Executive Director Karin Goulian, because of renovations at the State University College at Oneonta.

About 170 are attending this year's event, which includes workshops, lectures, vendors and a doll-making competition, Goulian said. The attendees, mostly women, are about 90 percent hobbyists and 10 percent professionals, she said.

DAG, a not-for-profit international doll-makers organization, was founded in Oneonta in 1978 and has headquarters in town at Seeley's Ceramics. In addition to the annual festival in Oneonta, Goulian said, the Guild holds seven or eight events per year all over the world.

"Every time I go to a competition, I see something new, and that's the fun part," she said. "The imagination never ceases to amaze me."

While participants attended technique workshops Thursday afternoon, judges were evaluating 150 competition entries on characteristics such as the general appearance of the doll, the workmanship and the quality of the painting.

The competition is intended to be a learning experience for doll-makers, Goulian said, and entrants are given a critique.

"The students should take it as advice, to go home and not make those mistakes again," said one judge, Gudrun Kotaska, of Germany.

The competition exhibit and the sales room, both at Dewar Hall, will be open to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. A $5 admission price will also allow doll-lovers to sit in on lectures.

Wilson, who traveled to Oneonta from her home in York, England, said she got into dolls after taking a class 17 years ago and has been teaching doll-making techniques for the last 10.

"I just love it. I used to sit in on seminars and see all the buzzing and happiness going on," she said. "I really like sharing."

On Thursday afternoon, she was teaching a group of women how to make a Victorian-style doll rattle. One of her students, Peg Gilson, 64, of Rochester, was sewing tiny pink beads around a rosette.

"We're all doll-makers and only other doll-makers understand," she said, while those with different hobbies, "they don't understand the passion."