People We Meet Along the Way & On Etsy
The Raggedys
Emily Archer artist
Handmade scarecrows
Handcrafted scarecrows
Whimsical scarecrows
Sustainable crafts
Reclaimed fabric art
Recycled clothing crafts
Handmade garden decorations
In a quiet little corner of Kent, artist and storyteller Emily Archer is breathing new life into old clothes, forgotten fabrics and one of the English countryside’s most familiar figures.
There is something wonderfully peculiar about a scarecrow.
For centuries, they have stood silently at the edges of fields, gardens and farms, crooked sentinels dressed in cast-off shirts, wind battered hats and trousers that probably once belonged to somebody else. Weathered by the rain, bleached by sun and generally regarded with far more curiosity than fear by the majority of the local birds. Each one gradually becomes part of the landscape.
But according to artist and maker Emily Archer, they may be doing rather more than watching the cabbages.
“They stand with one wooden foot in our world and the other somewhere far more curious,” she says.
Emily is the creator behind The Raggedys, a story-filled world of handcrafted creatures, curious companions and wonderfully wonky scarecrows, all made very slowly from reclaimed materials in her home studio, tucked away in Kent.
Emily’s creations look less manufactured and more discovered. Unearthed from behind an old potting shed, found sleeping beneath a hedgerow or spotted standing silently among the runner beans with pockets full of feathers and secrets.
The latest inhabitants of this strange world are Emily’s full-sized Scarecrows in a Box.
Each character arrives flat-packed with a handmade head, a carefully gathered outfit, hat, fastenings and illustrated instructions. The new owner provides a simple wooden cross-frame and the straw, then stuffs, dresses and names their scarecrow before choosing the patch of earth each will call home.
No two are ever quite alike.
One may arrive in a faded gentleman’s waistcoat with a solemn expression and the air of someone who has been placed in charge of the marrows. Another might wear a floral dress, a crooked hat and a smile suggesting she already knows every piece of gossip on the allotment.
Some look dependable. Some appear wildly theatrical. Others are plainly far too friendly to frighten any song-bird or sparrow.
That, of course, is all part of their charm.
At the heart of The Raggedys is a desire to make thoughtfully and to see possibility in materials that others might overlook.
Old clothes, weathered fabrics, discarded trims and rescued scraps are gathered and given a new purpose. A worn shirt becomes a scarecrow’s Sunday best. An old button becomes a watchful eye. A forgotten piece of cloth is patched, stitched and allowed to begin another life beneath the open sky.
Their uneven stitches, faded colours and curious imperfections are never disguised. They are the very things that give each character a little piece of forgotten history.
Emily describes the process as “slow making”: choosing materials for their feeling, texture and character rather than striving for factory-made perfection.
This approach makes every scarecrow gloriously individual while preserving something increasingly rare, the sense that an object has passed through human hands.
In a world crowded with identical things, a Raggedy scarecrow feels like an heirloom in the making: something to be named, photographed, repaired, redressed and remembered through changing seasons.
There is nostalgia in raising a scarecrow, but there is also something beautifully relevant about it.
It draws families outdoors. It encourages children to build, stuff, dress, imagine and invent. It transforms reclaimed clothing into something joyful and gives a garden a guardian with genuine personality.
As rain softens their clothes and sunshine fades their colours, they do not become less lovely. They simply become more themselves.
Each passing season adds another mark to their story.
And perhaps that is the real magic of them. These are not ornaments intended to remain pristine. They are made to live outdoors, to weather the year and slowly become part of a place.
Emily makes her scarecrows individually and in small numbers, allowing each one to develop its own face, clothing and peculiar personality.
You can discover more stories and view the current Order Book at www. TheRaggedys.com
The Raggedys are created by Kent artist, maker and storyteller Emily Archer. Each character is individually handmade using reclaimed clothing, carefully gathered fabrics and beautifully imperfect details.
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