More photos of Evelyne’s doll now that her dress is dry 🙂 These are much better photos that those I took yesterday at sunset.  I almost deleted yesterday’s photographs, but I decided to keep the first post up so that you can see what a difference better lighting makes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evelyne’s doll is finished and ready to travel.  She’ll be leaving here soon on her journey to Belgium.

This is Evelyne’s doll.  I just finished her this afternoon.  I put the final few stitches in her blue homespun check dress, sewed on it’s antique glass buttons, and popped the dress into a basin of wash water.  At the moment it is hanging out on my clothesline to dry.

 

Today Savannah has been busy packing her trunk.  She will soon be immigrating to Canada to live with her big sister.

 

 

In February I finished a custom reproduction Izannah Walker doll for a very fascinating lady named Maxine.  Maxine had seen my ads in Antique Doll Collector magazine and called me last August to discuss the possibility of ordering one of my Izannahs.  We chatted several times, and by the end of the month Maxine had decided exactly how she wanted her doll to look.  Maxine chose to place the doll on lay-away and requested a February 2013 completion date.  During the months while I was working on Maxine’s doll  she would call me to check on my progress and also to talk about dolls.  She told me many interesting stories about her collection, dolls that she had bought and sold and people she knew in the doll world.

My favorite conversation with Maxine was the one where she reminisced about a friend of hers who had been the dress maker for the dolls in Maxine’s collection.  She told me about meeting the woman, becoming friends with her, and about some of the amazing dresses she had created for Maxine’s doll’s.  The most inspiring part of this story is that the last doll’s dress that Maxine had commissioned from her friend had been completed just a few weeks before the women’s death at “almost 100” years of age.  Maxine assured me that the last dress was just as beautiful and well made as the very first dress she had ever ordered.  I’d like to think that in the future someone will be able to say the same about me.

On Friday afternoon I received a call from Maxine’s daughter.  She told me that Maxine had passed away, very softly and gently on Wednesday and that she was calling to tell me how much her mother had loved the doll I made for her.  I was overwhelmed that this woman would take the time, in the midst of her grief, to call and thank me for providing her mother with such pleasure.  It was an extraordinary kindness and a very singular experience…

* To read more about Maxine’s Doll click here.