Author: paulawalton

My name is Paula Walton. I’m a working craftsperson. I’ve been self-employed since 1986, when I started selling the items that I make under the name A Sweet Remembrance. Among other things, I am a doll maker, a dressmaker that specializes in reproduction women’s and children’s clothing, maker of spun cotton ornaments and holiday figures, and a freelance designer. Upon occasion I write magazine articles and am a Craftsperson in Residence. I teach and do demonstrations quite frequently, plus I was previously the director and curator of a small museum in Connecticut.

Selecting the Appropriate Fabric for Your Doll’s Dress

February 7, 2009February 7, 2009 paulawaltonLeave a comment

izannah-and-dress I’m going to admit right up front that seeing an Izannah Walker style reproduction doll, or worse still, a re-dressed antique Izannah, wearing a dress made of fabric that does not fit the style and age of the doll is something that sets my teeth on edge. Ok, that means that I’m really, really picky. I find even the most beautifully made dress very distracting when the material used is obviously wrong. It takes my attention away from the doll itself. So I’m on a one-woman crusade to help doll makers find antique reproduction fabrics that will blend in with the style of their dolls and act as a perfect finishing touch to all of their hard work.

Finding a good selection of mid-1800’s reproduction print fabrics appropriate for dressing an Izannah Walker doll is very easy, due to the current popularity of quilting. Even better news for those of us interested in Izannah type doll making is that reproduction Civil War era quilts are very big with quilters right now, so there are a lot of different fabrics to choose from.

repro-fabric When looking at reproduction fabrics, remember you can always pick fabrics from an earlier time period than your doll, as people saved and re-worked the fabric from used garments. Doll clothing, like quilts, could easily have been made from someone’s stash of worn out clothing.

Locate a shop in your area that sells quilting fabrics and supplies. Give them a call to make sure that they have Civil War era fabrics, and then treat yourself to a field trip. Browse through the shop and enjoying imagining your dolls dressed in all of the interesting prints you will find.

If you prefer armchair shopping, I would like to suggest one of my favorite online sources for reproduction fabrics and one that you will find really easy to remember, www.reproductionfabrics.com . One of the best things about this site is that it is divided into time periods for you, which makes picking the right fabric a sure thing. Make sure to sign up for Margo’s newsletter. She shares very interesting textile tidbits and often has special sales for newsletter subscribers.

white-dresses-two1 If you are looking for very fine white cottons, both plain and white on white, www.mini-magic.com is the place to go.

Some books on the subject that I find helpful are:

Dating Fabrics A Color Guide 1800-1960 by Eileen Jahnke Trestain

ISBN 0-89145-884-0

America’s Printed Fabrics 1770-1890 by Barbara Brackman

ISBN 1-57120-255-2

Two quilt books that have some great close-up photographs of antique fabric are:

American Folk Art Quilts by Maggi McCormick Gordon

ISBN 978-1-57076-400-4

American Quilts and Coverlets in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Amelia Peck

ISBN 978-0-9797400-0-8

Laundry Day – Proper Washing Instructions for Antique Clothes

February 2, 2009March 30, 2020 paulawalton2 Comments

laundry1 Today I am starting the first step in drafting patterns for my Izannah doll making class. Just like in any other type of pattern making, I have to first take accurate measurements before I can actually draw out the pattern. This means I need to start by undressing the doll.

Since I plan to measure both dolls and compare, then average their measurements, I’ll have to do everything twice. Being just like a child, and wanting to play with my new toy first, I’m starting with Izannah II. I really haven’t had the opportunity to actually sit down and spend a lot of time with her since she arrived here. Don’t think she’s been neglected; I’ve stared lovingly at her every time I pass by where she sits, so she doesn’t feel slighted.

Izannah II has only two garments, a chemise and a dress.After carefully removing both pieces of clothing from the doll, I decided to wash them prior to measuring.

These are the steps I use to launder antique textiles:

First, and most importantly, I carefully look over the item I want to wash to make sure that I think it is sturdy enough to survive cleaning.I make sure that it isn’t colored with dyes that will run and bleed when wet and that the fabric itself retains its integrity and is not disintegrating.As a general rule, don’t wash antique silks and examine wools to make sure they have been washed previously before you wash them.Cottons and linens usually wash well.
I wash all antique fabrics with distilled water and Orvus, which is a museum-quality washing paste. If I am washing white or light-colored cottons or linens that are stained or discolored, I bleach them using sodium perborate.Sodium perborate is heat-activated, so it’s necessary to heat the distilled water before using. Never use sodium perborate on wool or silk!.
If the item I’m washing is not too large, i.e. a piece of doll clothing, I usually wash it in an enamelware bowl. A plastic, glass, or other non-reactive bowl would also be fine to use. I place a small spoonful of Orvus in the bottom of the bowl, and then add several spoonfuls of sodium perborate, if I’m using bleach. Next I pour in the heated distilled water. The warmth of the water will dissolve the Orvus and make the sodium perborate start to work. If I want my wash water temperature to be a bit cooler, I add room temperature distilled water to the bowl, then stir and add the item I’m washing.
Soak laundry in the bowl for about an hour, then rinse with distilled water at least three times or until the rinse water remains clear. Occasionally whatever I am washing will be so dirty that I will need to repeat these steps and wash it a second time.
After rinsing, gently lift the antique textile and place it on a clean white towel to dry flat. Use only previously laundered towels, not new ones. Make sure that you lay the textile out to dry in an area out of direct sunlight and away from heat sources.
Because heat is an enemy of antique fabrics, try to keep ironing to a minimum. By carefully smoothing garments as I lay them out to dry, I can usually avoid ironing altogether.

laundry-drying Work day one is at an end, but I’ve gotten side tracked, and all I’ve managed to get done is the laundry! That has a very familiar ring to it. At least this laundry is a lot more fun than the run of the mill dirty t-shirts and jeans.

I generally buy my Orvus and sodium perborate from Mini-Magic. A friend of mine recently found sodium perborate for sale on eBay at a good price, so you might want to check there too. She also located some at The Chemistry Store.

Izannah Walker Project Ideas

Izannah-Inspired Spun Cotton Ornament

February 2, 2009November 6, 2010 paulawalton6 Comments

yellow-sc-izzy pink-sc-izzy

If you are interested in this post, please visit my spun cotton ornament blog for more information, photos and general chit chat about spun cotton ornaments.

This is an ornament that I’ve been thinking about making for some time. I’m sure you know how it goes, you are right in the middle of working on some other project, your hands busily doing some mindless, automatic pilot part of the process, your thoughts wandering all over the known universe. When, pop, suddenly you have a great idea!

This usually leads rather rapidly to the realization that you would really rather stop what you are working on so that you can immediately begin on your bright, shiny, new project. Then you give yourself a stern talking to, summon up all of your work ethic and guilt feelings, and continue on with what you were originally doing. Hopefully you remember your excellent idea and eventually get to make it a reality. Today is the day I decided to finally work on this particular bright, shiny bit of imagination.

I think the main forces that caused my thoughts to stray to this ornament were my plans for this Izannah doll making blog and a second blog that I have planned – to provide support for my spun cotton ornament classes. Thinking about project ideas for both blogs just led naturally to the idea for this project – one that combines both an Izannah Walker doll and a spun cotton ornament. I’ve worked in a couple of new embellishment ideas that I hope all of you spun cotton artists will find interesting.

Basic instructions and material lists for making spun cotton ornaments are provided in my regular in-person and by-mail classes. You are welcome to use the instructions below for your own personal use, but please do not use them for any commercial purposes. This means that you can’t sell items made with these instructions, patterns containing them, use them in teaching a class, or for any other money-making reason. You can however make as many as you want for yourself or to give away to your fortunate family and friends, if you can bear to part with your new ornaments.

Cut a 9-½ inch long piece of wire for your body armature (which you will bend in half).Cut a 4-1/4 inch piece wire for the arms.Assemble the armature and proceed to make a standard spun cotton figure.I lightly sprayed mine with tea, as per the instructions given in class.
Take a clear photograph of the face and shoulders of an Izannah Walker doll.Resize the image so that the face measures approximately 7/8 of an inch high. Print the re-sized image either in color or sepia on white card stock.Make sure you use the highest quality print setting available. Carefully cut out around the face and shoulder plate so that you have the equivalent of a lithographed paper scrap. Alternate ideas are to draw or paint your doll’s head, or to use the photograph of any young child, either old or new, that you would like. Sepia-toned prints may be hand-colored in the eyes, lips and checks.
If you plan to hang your ornament, run a short length of floss, ribbon, or string through the top of the head. I used waxed twine. See class instructions for details.
Mix brown acrylic paint with water in equal parts. My color choice was burnt umber. Paint the back of your figure’s head. Next paint on classic Izannah boots. Let dry.
Cut white crepe paper 1-½ x 8 inches to form a petticoat. Glue in place.
Cut colored crepe paper 1-¾ x 9 inches for skirt. Cut out bodice, sleeve and waistband pieces using the pattern given here, for the yellow dress, as a guide. Dress pieces for the pink dress mimic those in my Izannah Walker Doll Clothes Pattern. You may need to make adjustments to fit your figure as you go along.
For trim like the yellow dress shown here, glue thin bands of 1/8 inch wide black ribbon along the lower edges of the skirt and sleeves. Let the glue dry completely before attaching the clothing to your Izannah ornament.
If you prefer the all-over print like that in the pink dress, gather together three paint brushes with the same size handles, and rubber band them tightly together so that the ends of the handles form a triangle of dots. Dip the ends of the handles in undiluted acrylic paint, wipe the excess off on a paper towel, and then use the tips of the handle like a stamp to create an evenly-spaced pattern on the crepe paper for your dress. I suggest practicing first before you work on the actual dress pieces. Let the paint dry thoroughly before attaching the clothing to your Izannah ornament.
Glue clothing to ornament per instructions given in class.
If you would like, you may embellish the back of the dress bodice with tiny vintage buttons.
Sign and date your ornament. Hang her somewhere that makes you smile.Enjoy!
Visit my other blog www.spuncottonornaments.com for additional spun cotton ornament information.

If glue and paper aren’t your mediums of choice, I have listed two of these ornaments on eBay. They are also for sale on my website, Paula Walton’s A Sweet Remembrance.

izannah-spun-cotton-dress-p

Doll Clothing · Where to Shop

Brown Polished Cotton Lining Fabric

January 29, 2009February 23, 2009 paulawalton2 Comments

Very often in the mid 1800’s woman and children’s dresses were lined with a medium brown polished cotton fabric, also known as glazed cotton, and cotton sateen. It was a very sturdy, neutral, long wearing choice of lining material.

My Izannah Walker doll without curls wears her original dress, which has a bodice lining and false hem made of this fabric. The pattern for her dress is the one that I sell labeled Izannah Walker Doll Clothes Pattern for 18-1/2″ Doll.

I currently have one source for this lining fabric. It is available online from the Fashion Fabrics Club located in St. Louis, MO. They are selling this 54-inch wide fabric for $6.95 per yard. I have ordered from them several times and always been quite pleased with their fabrics and service.

Doll Clothing · Where to Shop

The Art of Pressing

January 22, 2009January 26, 2009 paulawaltonLeave a comment

I am not a big fan of ironing. In fact I will tumble clothes in the dryer over and over again to avoid ironing and one of my very favorite new products is Downy Wrinkle Releaser. Having made that perfectly clear, I would now like to state that there are sometimes when you just have to iron, and pressing seams is one of them.

Hand-sewn seams are most often not pressed open, because the seam will be stronger if the seam allowances are pressed together to one side.

Unless directed differently in your pattern instructions, machine-sewn seams should first be pressed to one side, just like hand-sewn seams, and then opened and pressed flat. This is probably an extra step that you aren’t used to taking, but trust me it will be worth your while to press your seams in this manner.

If you don’t already have one, you might consider getting a tiny quilting iron to use when pressing your doll clothes seams. They should be available at quilt and fabric stores in your local area, and they are certainly readily available online. This is a link to Connecting Threads, one of my favorite online sources for quilting supplies.

For all of you non-ironing fans, like me, cheer up. There is absolutely no reason at all for you to press seams when you are sewing your doll. You just need to iron her clothes.

Doll Clothing · Where to Shop

“Button, button, who’s got the button?”

January 22, 2009January 26, 2009 paulawaltonLeave a comment

If you already own a copy of my Izannah Walker Doll Clothes Pattern for 18-1/2″ Doll then you know that the buttons called for in the pattern instructions are small white glass buttons with a painted rim. If you are searching for buttons like these, the best source is antique button dealers.

I buy quite a lot of old buttons and while my very favorite way to buy them is by the jar full, (for some reason old buttons are very often found inside of antique canning jars and sold by the jar) I very seldom find this particular type of button that way.

More often than not I buy individual buttons of this type from button dealers. Probably the most famous of all antique button shops in the U.S. is Tender Buttons. Located at 143 E 62nd Street, New York, NY 10065, (212) 758-7004. They are open weekdays 10:30 am – 6 pm; Saturday 10:30 am – 5:30 pm. Tender Buttons is a lot of fun to visit, but they aren’t the most cost effective place to buy your antique buttons. I’ve had the best luck and gotten the lowest prices buying buttons at Brimfield, the thrice-yearly outdoor antique extravaganza that takes over the town of Brimfield, MA. There are usually multiple button dealers that set up in Brimfield, many of whom congregate in the same location, making it easy to go from booth to booth.

I’ve also had whole huge cards of these buttons given to me by a friend. Obviously I have the BEST friends in the world! So spreading the word around and about that you are searching for glass buttons is also a good thing to do.

glass-buttons

Painted Cloth Doll Making

Prepping Your Cloth Dolls For Paint

January 22, 2009January 22, 2009 paulawalton2 Comments

I recently received a call from Christine P. from Michigan. It was great to have a chance to chat with Christine about several of my classes. Among other things, we were talking about painted cloth dolls. Christine has become interested in trying cloth doll making and has been researching it a bit. She mentioned that she had learned that she would need to gesso the fabric before painting it. I told her that gesso is good, but Helen Pringle’s “Miracle Messy Mixture” is better.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with “Miracle Messy Mixture”, it is a blend of equal parts of Liquitex Acrylic Gel Medium and Liquitex Modeling Paste. If you can’t find Acrylic Gel Medium you can substitute Acrylic Matte Medium. Mix up only a small quantity at a time, as it is fairly expensive and it begins to harden as soon as it is opened. Use the “Messy Mixture” instead of gesso, making sure to sand smooth between coats.

The advantage of “M.M.M.” over gesso is that it does not crack and dent as much if your doll is dropped, squeezed, or attacked by a heavy blunt object. Dents will very slowly raise back up. Your paint may crack, but the doll itself will survive rough treatment much better if you use this method rather than gesso. Paint can always be re-touched.

If you would like to read more about Helen Pringle and her dolls, look for these magazine articles:

The Cloth Doll, Spring 1988 issue, pages 8-11.

The Cloth Doll, Summer 1988 issue, pages 6-8.

DOLLS The Collector’s Magazine, March/April 1990, pages 75 & 76.

Better Homes & Garden’s Special Interest Publications Dollmaker, 1992, pages 53-57.

Doll Clothing

Historic Seam Finishes For Doll Clothing

January 22, 2009January 27, 2009 paulawalton2 Comments

You’ve found that perfect fabric for your doll’s dress, your mind’s eye is focused on the finished dress and no other material will do. Unfortunately the fabric of your desire is loosely woven and unravels like crazy if you even glance at it, to say nothing of what it does when you actually approach it with a pair of scissors in your hands. What do you do?

Obviously Izannah would not have resorted to using Fray Check or a serger. Your solution is to use the seam finishes that she could have used.

overcast-seam Method one is to overcast your seam allowances by hand using a single strand of thread. This actually goes a lot faster than you would think and is the 1800’s version of finishing seams by running them through your serger. Something that will save you some work is cutting whatever straight seams that you can along the selvedges of your fabric and letting the selvedge itself act as a seam finish. This was commonly done in the 1700 and 1800’s. Because old fabrics did not have printing along the selvedges like some modern fabrics do, I only use unprinted selvedges this way. Usually one edge of your fabric will have no printing.

pinkers A second method is to pink your seams. To do this you may use pinking sheers, a pinking machine, or hand pink the edges of your seams using a pair of straight scissors. The oldest forms of pinking are hand pinking, or the use of pinking irons. Pinking irons were placed along the edge of the fabric and struck with a mallet or hammer. They were primarily used to give a decorative edge to ruched fabric used for trimming 18^th century gowns and petticoats. Hand pinked edges were used more commonly as a seam finish. After hand pinking and pinking irons, came pinking machines. Think of them as a hand cranked version of today’s rotary cutter fitted with a pinking blade.

A third option would be to make French seams along all straight seams and overcast curved seams, such as armholes, and gathered waistbands. This looks especially nice if you are working with a sheer fabric.

The least desirable choice of historic seam finish for doll clothes would be to bind your seams with twill tape or silk ribbon. Avoid this method if possible, as it adds far too much bulk to tiny garments.