Cabbage Patch Kids Though Xavier Roberts is the creator of the Cabbage Patch Kids brand, many of the brand's defining characteristics, such as the dolls' overly round faces and that they came with an adoption certificate, can be traced back to Martha Nelson Thomas, an American folk artist from Kentucky. Before Roberts ever became involved in the toy industry, Thomas created and marketed her own line of dolls, called Doll Babies, which she sold at local arts and craft shows and markets. The two crossed paths at a state fair in 1976 and Roberts began purchasing her dolls to sell at a profit
Xavier Roberts in a process known as soft sculpture. He even took her idea of issuing adoption certificates for each doll. Drawing on the early German craft of needle sculpting, and from quilting skills learned from his mother, Roberts created a line of hand-crafted dolls he called, "Little People". He and a group of friends began travelling from state to state in the southeastern United States attending craft fairs and folk art exhibitions. At them, he began selling these handcrafted dolls. He won awards for his work, including a first-place ribbon for a doll named Dexter at the Osceola Craft Show in