One Bossier City lady is rebuilding her life one stitch at a time.

After ovarian cancer and a divorce hit her at the same time in 2005, Linda Norris was left with nearly nothing. However, after much prayer and hard work, her life has a new light to guide her and it comes in the form of a doll named Savannah.

The Savannah Doll is the name of Norris' new line of dolls, named after her granddaughter, she started making after she regained her health and focus.

"My story started out from despair," Norris said. "I lost everything. It was me and my Chihuahuas against the world and it was going to be hard to start over again. One night in a dream, I saw this doll and I felt that God spoke to my spirit and told me to make one."

Norris soon was behind a sewing machine and started working.

"I had not sewn in 25 years, but I always have been real crafty," she said. "I knit, crochet and paint."

Her dolls are more than 3 feet tall and feature embroidered clothing that comes in a variety of colors and patterns, though her first prototype wore a dress featuring Norris' sorority letters, colors and symbols. After the doll was finished, she decided to test the reaction of others.

"I brought my prototype doll to the Delta Sigma Theta regional meeting last year at the Shreveport Convention Center to see how well others would react to the doll," she said. "When I first walked in with the dolls, I received more than $5,000 dollars in orders for the doll. After that, I thought, 'Maybe I'm up to something.'"

Norris is not the only one who believes that. Her long-time friend, Ella McGuire, said Norris' dolls have been a rejuvenating force in her life.

"It has been exciting to watch Linda transform," McGuire said. "She tried a lot of things to find her niche, and since she started making these dolls, she has really come back to life. I'm proud of her and I think she will succeed with them."

Norris has since made several more dolls, each featuring a different sorority's letters, colors and their embroidered symbols, and she has taken them to other regional meetings across the country. She recently has found a manufacturer to mass produce her dolls and is waiting to get a large order of them so she can move to a large scale.

Norris now has one more goal she is trying to accomplish: She wants to share her story and her budding success with America on the Oprah Winfrey show. She has written submission requests and is looking forward to one day showing her dolls on the show. She is currently working on a three-minute documentary with her friend Dale Lynch, owner of Millennia Music Group, documenting how she will accomplish this feat.

This article was provided by: Shreveport Times
Written by: Manny Guendulay