I’d like to introduce you to Hope a very special doll that I have been making for Susan. Hope is the last doll that I’m shipping out before Christmas this year. She is a quiet, demure girl with auburn wisps of hair that frame her sweet face. Susan chose a dark brown print fabric with a madder stripe for her dress, that compliments her hair and complexion. She has bare feet, with hand stitched toes, tall stockings made from a vintage lady’s sock and red leather shoes with pinked edges and silk ribbon ties.
With just a few days left before Christmas, I thought you all might like to see photos of Marilyn’s Christmas doll (don’t worry, I’m not spoiling the surprise, she knows all about the doll and planned it so that she would have her before Christmas). 🙂
I was planning to mail this doll to Marilyn on Tuesday, but a heavy snowstorm got in the way and delayed her departure by a day, giving her one last chance to romp in the snow before heading west to her sunny new home. The post office has done a wonderful job of transporting her, and at last check she has reached Arizona and should be arriving at her new home very soon!
12/21 – Update: Good news! Marilyn’s doll arrived at her new home safe and sound. She is settling in nicely on her new settee and making friends with a very sympathetic teddy bear from Maine. They are busy chatting about their travels from New England to the great southwest and making plans for the best Christmas ever! Thankfully this doll turned out to be everything Marilyn was hoping she would be. Something I always worry about when my dolls leave the studio to venture out in the world 🙂
Staying warm in front of the fire…Look Ma, no arms! 🙂
Should we place these by the door for St Nicholas?Sharing the joys of the season!
My mom and dad on their wedding day. My mother was 18-1/2 when this photo was taken.
Today would have been my mother’s 84th birthday. Happy Birthday Mom!
My mother’s Shirley Temple doll is wearing a celluloid pin I bought because it reminds me of my mom.
I have always loved dolls, and as far as I can tell my mother did too, although I don’t think that she had an abundance of dolls when she was growing up. As a child of the depression, born just 10 months prior to the stock market crash of 1929, she had a somewhat stark childhood. I have the Shirley Temple doll that was the last doll she received as a child and the only one she kept. Later in life my mom began collecting dolls. She had one large bisque doll, quite a few composition dolls and a whole armful of vintage dolls in international costumes. She even bought a fair number of hard plastic dolls.
I’ve owned this doll since I was five.
When I was five, Mom bought me a composition doll at Goodwill for a quarter. She was my very first vintage doll! I was only allowed to play with her in the house, because my mother was afraid I would drop her on the concrete driveway or sidewalk and break her. I still have that doll, who survived my childhood and remained unbroken until my husband stepped on her and cracked one of her legs. If I was especially good I was permitted to play with Mom’s Shirley Temple!
My mom is the one in the yellow dress. I’m standing in front of her. This was the only year in my whole life that I had short hair!
The dolls that I love best are older than my mother’s favorites. I rather think that she wouldn’t have liked the antique painted cloth dolls that have captured my heart and I’m positive that she didn’t share my passion for early wooden dolls. But in the best motherly tradition, she was happy to go with me to doll shops and was excited for me when I bought my first true antique dolls.
I don’t have much time these days to work on doll projects of my own, but one of the things I have wanted to do for several years is to make a pair of reproduction 18th century wooden dolls. I’m hoping that 2014 is the year I get to make this dream come true. I plan to name one of the dolls after my mother and make her wig from some of my mom’s hair that she cut off when I was a baby (she got tired of me pulling on her long hair ). The second doll will be smaller and her wig will be made with my hair that I’ve cut and saved (doll makers don’t throw anything away). Working on the dolls will be a nice way to spend time remembering my mother and all of the things we liked to do together and a keepsake that reflects our shared passion for dolls and memories of long ago childhoods.
Meet Verity Annabelle Mary. She is just starting out on her long journey to her new home in Canada. She is so excited that she will get to give her new mother a big birthday hug and be able to celebrate Christmas with all of her sisters!
I overheard her whispering to Isabeau and Zanna that she is hoping for a big cup of hot cocoa when she arrives home, to help her warm up…
Last week I added one more member to my Izannah Walker family. She came to me from Edyth O’Neill, a long time antique dealer and doll collector, who is renowned for her amazing hooked rug designs and folk art portraits and paintings. How could I resist bringing this small Texan back to New England, since it is a journey that I have made myself, with a few stops along the way. I was born in Amarillo, Texas, up in the panhandle of the state, quite a distance from Edyth’s home in Fredricksburg, and spent a lot of time during my childhood visiting relatives throughout Texas. Now this tiny kindred spirit and I are both snugly ensconced in an 18th century house, a mere 106 miles from Izannah Walker’s home in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
The girls are thrilled to be reunited with two of their sisters.
Edyth named this doll Patience. I have always had a special fondness for virtue names, so much so that I named one of our family cats Patience. She was part of our family for 16 years, all through my sons childhoods, and is something of a family legend. It’s turning out to be a bit confusing to have a second Patience in the house. We may need to fall back on family tradition and call her by her middle name instead, as my mother and her siblings were known, or her initials like my father and uncle. No matter what her name is, her sisters and I are over joyed to have her here.
I will need to spend some time making her a wardrobe, but in the mean time all of her sisters are happy to share theirs. They spent an hour this morning going through their trunks to see what they had that would fit her.
Too Big!
This is the one! It looks like I need to get busy and come up with a working pattern so that I can make a reproduction of this dress, as all the girls decided it looked perfect on their newest sibling.
Yesterday brought unexpected rain showers, which played havoc with my photography plans. Eventually the skies cleared and I was able to venture out with doll and camera in hand! Here are my daylight photos of Jennie’s doll. Tomorrow she will be traveling west to her new home. She is very excited to meet her new sisters, most of whom are early china dolls! If you’d like to read more about her home coming and Jennie’s collection of antique china dolls, visit her blog Quintessential Antique Dolls.
Jennie’s doll is so happy to have her wardrobe finished and packed for her westward trip to her new home.
I just finished making this doll and her wardrobe for Jennie. I haven’t quite adjusted to standard time yet. 🙂 I usually work until pretty late in the day, and don’t leave my studio until 6:15 or 6:30 each evening. All through the summer I’ve been able to take photographs at the end of the day, but no more. Now that we are well into autumn and daylight saving time is no more, the moon is well up before I dash between the studio and the kitchen door! I had to resort to taking these photos inside the studio with a flash this evening. Tomorrow I will take more in natural light. Needless to say, she looks so much prettier in person!
Jennie’s doll is modeling her summer dress.Here she is wearing her indigo morning dress.
All red! Dress, beads and shoes…
Jennie’s doll is very fond of her brown sunbonnet.
Izannah Walker Journal 