My 19 inch reproduction Izannah Walker doll will be available for sale on Monday December 1st at 8 p.m. Eastern time (7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain, and 5 p.m. Pacific).
Good morning everyone! I hope all of your Thanksgiving plans and chores are going well! Just two more days to go!
Here at home and in my studios there is quite a bit of frantic activity. I have a wonderful new black Izannah Walker doll almost complete!!! She is just waiting for buttons, buttonholes, drawstrings and a pocket to be sewn onto her apron ❤
I also have 3 18inch tall Izannahs nearing completion ~ an Isabeau, a Sarah Alice, and a Zanna. Plus there are two sweet Lizzybits somewhat impatiently waiting in the wings for final detail painting and clothing. After more than 2 years of crazy house repairs, some emergency and some planned, plus an autumn of various illnesses shared by my 5th grade granddaughter and teacher son, things are finally slowly getting back to a more normal state. Hooray! It’s so nice to have more or less uninturrupted studio time, and such joy to be surrounded by little cloth girls instead of workmen.
I haven’t quite decided which day to offer my latest black Izzy for sale, since it’s such a busy holiday week. If you have been longing for a black Izannah Walker doll please feel free to email me at paula@asweetremembrance.com with days and times that you would prefer. I’d be happy to take a look at everyone’s preferences and try to choose a time that would be good for the majority of interested buyers. This black Izannah is VERY strongly influenced by the single known remaining example of Izanah’s black dolls. If you aren’t familiar with her go take a look at the Theriault’s auction where she last sold . My reproduction has faded wool hair like the original, along with her lovely rich skin tone.
I’ve been noticing a few out of the ordinary little things for several days now. For example the parlor door, which is never closed, is mysteriously shut at odd times through out the day.
When I peeked through a crack in the door, I spied the little cloth girls whispering excitedly to each other…
… and then there are all the little out of place bits and pieces that keep mysteriously appearing and disappearing in their very tall house.
First it was tiny baskets of herbs in the kitchen, with little bits dropped on the floor, as if someone had hurriedly just left the room.
Next I noticed tiny bits of paper on the parlor table, at the same time as Ismay was scurrying out of the room on silent stocking feet.
After Ismay departed I saw that there were sewing implements inexplicably tucked under the shawl draped over the parlor bench!
Even odder sights awaited me upstairs in the bedroom. A trail of pansies and leaves led me to a stack of books, with a BRICK on top, that had been hastily shoved under the bed??? There was yet another book protruding from beneath the mattress of the adjoining bed! It looks to me as if the sisters are keeping birthday secrets. Won’t they be surprised when they find that I have a birthday secret of my own!
Please join us here tomorrow September 25th at 5 p.m. Eastern Time for a grand birthday tea party in honor of Izannah Walker’s 208th birthday.
Just 14 days until Izannah Walker’s 208th birthday and my annual celebration. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time tucked away in both studios, and in my office (aka my late night sewing lair!) working on a variety of my reproduction Izannahs. I have to admit that I’ve been falling in love with these new little cloth girls a bit more every day ❤
I’ve temporarily set aside the large group of Charlcies in hopes of having some birthday dolls available! Reproducing Charlcie is a more lengthy and complicated process, which I will go right back to after bringing some of her smaller sisters to life. I’m still not entirely sure how many of the six dolls that you can see on my painting table will be finished by the 25th. I’m hoping that none of the remaining construction projects start in the next two weeks, but they are all subject to when the various tradespeople are available…
Regardless of any chaos and interruptions, all the dolls and I are greatly looking forward to their big birthday party and we hope you are too! We’d also like to take a moment to thank you all for your lovely messages and support. The proceeds from my dollmaking help fund the care, repair, and restoration of my 18th century home, barns, and the surrounding remnants of original farm land.
Naturally the party preparation involves cleaning house… and just as it is in every house the kitchen is the by far the messiest room!!!
On this twelfth day of Christmas I am looking back at some of my favorite Christmas moments during the past 39 years of A Sweet Remembrance, from St. Nicholas Eve right through to the last bite of Twelfth Night Cake. Thank you all for enthusiastically welcoming my hand made creations into your home and lives. You have made owning my own business and being a working artist a joy!
Each year brings it’s own share of obstacles, and difficulties because that is simply the way life is, but it also brings so many amazing moments… I am very much looking forward to a year that is filled with more! More dolls, more days working in my studio, more spun cotton figures, making more tiny dresses, more gardening, more time to paint, more days full of everyday things on my remnants of an 18th century farm, more family, more baking, more creating, more everything! I hope you are looking forward to more too ❤
All of the little cloth girls, spun cotton characters, mohair animals, bears and I wish you a wonderful 2025 filled with peace, love, joy & all good things!
Isabeau and Sarah Alice always insist on fresh from the garden berries, especially for special occasions ❤
Isabeau spread homemade violet jelly in between the glazed layers of vanilla bean and bergamot flavored yellow cake. Violet jelly??? Why is it green? The doll’s homemade violet jelly is green because they don’t add the lemon juice that most violet jelly recipes call for. The lemon juice causes and lovely chemical reaction between the steeped violet flowers and the acid in the lemon juice which turns the color from pale green to lavender. All of the little cloth sisters have most discerning taste buds and feel that the lemon juice overpowers the lovely delicate taste of the violets, so they choose to omit the lemon juice and have spring green jelly instead.
It’s always fun to use fresh herbs and flowers to decorate a special cake. This year the girls chose fresh sprigs of thyme, autumn pansies, and catnip.
The tiny three tiered cakes are a nod back to the 2nd Izannah Walker birthday celebration here at http://www.izannahwalker.com in 2011. The original cake shown above in the far left image was decorated with borage flowers, so using herbs & flowers is one of our long running traditions.
If you are suddenly curious about what type of cake Isabeau baked for the 2011 birthday cake it was a very old receipt (yes, so old that it was called a receipt rather than a recipe) for Pound Cake.
Pound Cake
Beat one Cup of Butter to a Cream, slowly beat in one and one third Cups of Sugar. Add one Teaspoonful of Mace and beat in five whole Eggs, adding them one at a time. Sift in two Cups of Flour, turn at once into a greased and floured Pan or Mould and bake slowly for one Hour.*
*Isabeau baked her cakes in a 300 degree oven, 30 minutes for the doll size cakes and two hours for the larger people size version.
All of this looking back at the 2011 birthday cake has convinced Sarah Alice that now you are going to be dying of curiosity and want to know the receipt/recipe for the very 1st birthday dessert that the dolls baked in 2010. P.S. Please pretend that you are, even if you aren’t, just to make her happy.
Birth-day Pudding
Butter a deep dish, and lay in slices of bread and butter, wet with milk, and upon these sliced tart apples, sweetened and spiced. Then lay on another layer of bread and butter and apples, and continue thus till the dish is filled. Let the top layer be bread and butter, and dip it in milk, turning the buttered side down. Any other kind of fruit will answer as well. Put a plate on the top, and bake two hours, then take it off and bake another hour.
This receipt (aka recipe) is from Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-Book by Catherine E. Beecher. Catherine Esther Beecher was born in 1800 in East Hampton, Long Island. She founded the Hartford Female Seminary in 1823 as well as other schools for young women in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. She wrote A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841) and Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-Book (1846).
Notes:
After buttering my dishes I dusted them with sugar, before layering in the bread and butter.
I cut the crusts off my bread, as the pudding was for a special occasion, but you certainly don’t have to. I saved the crusts as a treat for the wild birds in my yard. You may also save them to make stuffings, bread crumbs, or croutons.
I chose cinnamon, mace and nutmeg as my spices.
I baked my doll sized pudding in a custard cup, which would also be nice if you want to bake yours in individual portions.
I preheated my oven to 350 degrees and baked my puddings for 15 minutes, then I reduced the oven temperature to 250 degrees and continued baking for the remaining 2 hours and 45 minutes. I removed my doll size pudding from the oven after 30 minutes of total baking time. Your baking time is going to depend a lot on the size of your dishes and the thickness of your pudding, so check your oven fairly frequently. It’s also a good idea to put a cookie sheet under your dish, because my pudding bubbled over as it was baking.
“What are those little green crumbs that are showing up everywhere in the photos?” The green cake crumbs are supposed to represent moss, and were made by adding green food coloring to just enough cake batter to fill a single cupcake in a cupcake pan. After the cupcake baked and cooled Sarah Alice crumbled it to bits! Which she laughingly admits is one of her favorite baking chores.
shhhh… Both Sarah Alice and Isabeau sometimes help me post stories from here at the doll’s house on Facebook and Instagram. Afterwards they have been known to do a little late night scrolling for baking ideas… They found the idea for cake crumb moss from mustloveherbs . (and obviously the internet is their most well guarded secret tip!)
mmm ~ there are delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen, where Sarah Alice and Isabeau have taken over all of this year’s birthday party baking… ❤
“Ohhhhhhh Isabeau! I think we baked too many cakes!!!” wailed Sarah Alice. “I told you that I didn’t think we needed to triple the recipe.” calmly replied Isabeau. “Don’t worry, it will be alright. If nothing else we will all have cake for breakfast in the morning, and declare it to be a special treat!”
“Oops! I think I dropped a crumb.” “Are you sure?” “I don’t see one.” “I wonder where it went?”
“Everyone will be arriving soon, so we really need to get some of the cakes decorated” said Isabeau. “I’ll start layering the violet jelly in between the layers of this cake Sarah Alice, if you will tuck some of these pansies around the littler cakes.”
“The cakes look beautiful!” pronounced Sarah Alice. “Maybe I was worried for nothing.” “They are going to make the tea table look so festive!” “No one will be able to resist seconds, and maybe even thirds…”
“We’d better hurry, we still need to put the trifle together.” “Now where did I put that trifle bowl???” “The last time I saw it Izzybelle and the little boy next door were taking it back towards the brook.” “Izzybelle, will you come down the the kitchen for a moment?” “Izzybelle, hurry up!” “We’re running late, and it’s almost time for our guests to arrive!”
“Izzybelle do you know where our glass trifle bowl is?” asked Sarah Alice in what she hoped was a reasonable tone. Poor Sarah Alice is having a difficult day and trying so hard not to panic. She’s quite nervous because this is the very first time that she and Isabeau have done all of the birthday baking by themselves. “Didn’t I see you and James carrying it down towards the brook the other day? asks Isabeau. “Well…. we did, but…” replied Izzybelle quite slowly. “But what?” prompted Isabeau. Nervously Izzybelle admitted that she and James just “might” have borrowed it to use as a temporary home for a poor injured frog that James is nursing back to health. “That’s all well and good,” said Isabeau “but we need to put together the trifle, and I am not just going to toss the cake and raspberries into the cream crock and stir it together! This is a special occasion. It’s our dearest Izannah’s 207th birthday and I for one want everything to be perfect.” “Izzybelle, quickly run over to the big house and see if you can borrow some kind of pretty bowl to put the trifle in.” orders Sarah Alice in her “must be obeyed big sister voice”.
Izzybelle ran back and forth across the farmyard as quickly as she could, especially considering that she had both of her arms full of borrowed dishes. “This is all I could find!” gasped Izzybelle, who was trying to catch her breath. “An egg cup and a tea cup???” asked Isabeau. “They’ll have to do.” decided Sarah Alice. “At least they are both very pretty…” and without anymore talking Isabeau and Sarah Alice set to work layering fresh, moist cake cubes, rich whipped cream and fresh garden raspberries into their borrowed make-do trifle bowls. But what about Izzybelle you ask? She very quietly tiptoed upstairs to the parlor before anyone asked her anymore questions, or sent her on another errand.
Then before you could even stop to take a deep breath the sisters all gathered in their parlor to welcome their guests to the party…
Everyone agreed that it was a wonderful party, and that Sarah Alice and Isabeau’s foresight in providing prodigious quantities of cake was very much appreciated. They also admired the wonderful present of a new book for their library that was written and illustrated by two of their dearest friends, and read out loud to all the guests by Izzybelle (who needs to practice her reading). All of the little frustrations and business of the day melted away, as the dolls celebrated the amazing dollmaker who brought them to life so many years ago… ❤
Today Tillie Lamb, Sarah Alice, and sweet Isabeau stayed inside to decorate their house with Valentines as a surprise for their sisters, who were outdoors playing in the snow. While the other little cloth girls went sledding and built snowmen the self appointed decorating committee cut out paper hearts, placed Valentines on their sister’s pillows, and addressed cards to their friends. They even made Valentines for their dolls ❤
Today has been another busy day for the little cloth girls. Not only is it Halloween, but the first hard frost of autumn is coming tonight. That means there were many extra chores that had to be done before the sisters could celebrate one of their favorite holidays.
Hannah and Eliza Jane stayed in the very tall house to continue sewing on their new fall dresses in between baking sweets for Halloween. The whole house was filled with the sweet aromas of pumpkin, cinnamon, and sugar as both little cloth sisters dashed around the house in their petticoats (which made it much easier to work for them to help each other with dress fittings in between their baking.
Out in the gardens Isabeau, Zanna, Ismay, Tilly Lamb, Charlcie, Sarah Alice, Emma Blue, and even Izzybelle worked as hard as they could picking the last, tomatoes, herbs, and vegetables. Just before dusk they took out their garden sheers and cut all of the remaining flowers for pretty bouquets.
Eight tired, but happy dolls slowly walked back to their very tall house, ready to join their sisters for sweet Halloween treats, and just perhaps a trick or two. ❤
The Izannah sisters and I wish you all a very Happy All Hollows Eve!
On Monday, September 25th, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time
to attend my virtual celebration of Izannah Walker’s 206th Birthday!
The little cloth girls and I hope that you will come visit us as we throw our annual birthday party in honor of the amazing dollmaker that created them.
Following the grand birthday celebration…
On Tuesday September 26th at 9:00p.m. Eastern time
I will be offering a few of my handmade, historically accurate, reproduction
Izannah Walker dolls for sale.
For the particulars about how my sales work please read below. Thank you!
How to buy one of the dolls that will be for sale on September 26th, 2023 ~ this is the IMPORTANT part, so please read this!
I’ve been trying to keep buying my dolls as straight forward and easy as possible. I started out by simply saying that the first person to email me and request the doll would be it’s new owner. Straight forward and right to the point… What could go wrong? LOL ~ As I found out quite a few things could! There have been a few “hiccups” along the way… So in order to keep it all simple and easy please read and follow these directions, which will allow me to mark the dolls that sell “sold” as quickly as possible, collect the buyer’s payment and shipping information right away, and just generally get each doll on his or her way to their new home as quickly as possible. Plus it will also let everyone else know exactly what dolls are still looking for their new home. ❤
In a perfect world I would have the time, money, and energy to completely re-do my website and have automatic inventory control that would allow me to list one of a kind items. Until that magical day happens I appreciate your patience with my current selling policies. Thank you!!!
All of my dolls are sold on a “first come” basis. To purchase a doll email me at paula@asweetremembrance.com , in your email specify exactly which doll you wish to buy . Please be aware of how much the doll costs BEFORE you send your request to buy. You are welcome to ask questions, but please note that asking a question is not the same as making a commitment to buy and will not “hold your place in line” if someone else asks to buy the doll. Checks or money orders are preferred, Paypal is also accepted for payment. Free priority mail shipping & full insurance to any U.S. address. International orders ~ exact postage + $25 handling fee to help off set the extra time required for international shipping ~ check with me to make sure your international address is one I ship to. No shipping to Russia.
Isabeau and Sarah Alice have come up with their own personal tips as well ❤
Izannah Walker Journal 