Living dolls

Last weekend, I had my little grand nieces to come spend the night with me. There are actually 4 children, but only the two girls came this time, the older girl is Olivia Gabrialle ( Gabby )  who is 14 and the smaller is Kaelynn who is 8. Both girls are as sweet as can be, but it was super cold and they,  ( I think ) like a lot of children , refuse to wear socks and good shoes, no matter how cold it gets and  layers of clothes, like we older people do. I was worried about them being cold as, they have central heat at home, but we have heaters throughout the house. I did my best to keep it comfortable for them. Their mama was  surely going to have something to say about all the junk food we had. Hamburgers, chips, donuts, chocolate milk and pizza. Normally I would have cooked a good meal for them, but it was terribly cold, so we were bundled up in front of the TV or back in the paint room working. These kids live about a 30 to 40 minute drive away from us, so we can see them a lot more now. Be kind to us when looking at the pictures, nobody was concerned about their looks, and we looked pretty bad, especially me. Have you ever seen High school musical or Daddy Day care, well I have now, as that is the two movies Kaelynn picked out at the flea market we went to, and we watched all of these that night. Enough singing and dancing for a long time. Haha. They painted two of the rag dolls I had made the next day and kaelynn rummaged in the dolls clothes box until she found them a dress apiece and two hats. They also decided to paint the rabbit and cat pin keep dolls.  I sure did enjoy them and I believe they had fun. We went to McDonalds for supper and had Mcchicken Sandwiches, chicken nuggets, hamburgers, fries. I know. TERRIBLE, but I don't get them very often and took them where they wanted to go. this summer when they com

e back, we will do better, and they can swim at the beach all day, and watch as many high school musicals as they want to. I guess I better start saving up for our next shopping trip, as everything Kaelynn sees at the flea market is   CUTE.  Kids are great and just being with them and seeing how their minds work at this age is wonderful. Bless their little hearts. We just love them to pieces.

Mae Mae

While the weather has been so bad, I have been spending time trying to finish up a few dolls that I have been working on, and this one is Mae Mae. She is 20" or a tad taller. She isn't a beauty, but so sweet. I bought some fabric on ebay a couple of months ago. Some vintage white cotton. One fabric has large circles and one has small circles, they are dotted swiss circles. It is very pretty. I like white a lot and it looks good on this doll. I put a dress like this on Mona Lisa too, but Mona Lisa has a little bit of a sad story and I will tell you about it later. I made another pair of ( Martha shoes ) for Mae Mae and I think they are really cute. Well, not much to tell this time, except I am glad to have finished this little doll and I am happily working on my Maida doll challenge making the Alabama babies and working on some about 17" dolls, as I see people would like to have some of those. Keep warm and keep busy making beautiful dolls

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The Painted Head Rag Doll

For a long time, probably all my life, that I have thought about dolls, I have liked the rag dolls. When I never knew who made them, and gave no thought that they were worth lots of money, are that there were all kinds of different rag dolls, they always drew my attention, nothing about that has changed. For about a year now, I have lightly ventured out into making some rag dolls. First I have tried the primitive ones with the stitched faces, with simple arms and legs. These are still a favorite, but I decided, because the dolls were of such interest to me to go farther into how to make them and how to make painted ones as well. If a person wanted to,  they could devote an entire doll making career in just these dolls alone, as the variety is so great, and so challenging. One person that comes to mind is Norma Schneeman who excels in the primitive cloth dolls or rag dolls. To me, she has a special ( very special ) gift of being able to give the quaint, old, primitive quality to her dolls that isn't often found and what is wonderful about her is her long period of creativity in which her dolls have never lost their quality or that special sweetness that she is able to give them. I have made a picture of my first painted head rag doll ( besides the pin keep dolls ). Is this road any easier to go down and learn to make the true old looking painted faces that great rag dolls of the past have. No, I don't think it is any easier, and will require many years of going back and forth to achieve, but worth it. This doll I am showing you could be considered a spoon head doll or pancake head doll, as she had no gusset in her head to widen it out. In my haste to get started, I zoomed past that part, and so she will not be all that she could have been, if I had used my brain and some patience getting started,

but that is the way of things. Lesson learned. Making rag dolls,  what will I make? What will they wear? Will my brain last long enough for me to try to make these great dolls? I hope so.

Little Primitive Myrtle Mae Junior

  Little Myrtle Mae Junior is the last small 11 1/2" doll that I have right now. Usually we do them in groups, and all her little sisters are gone down to Louisiana to stay with Cynthia Orgeron, who will find them a home. Cynthia and I met about 2 1/2 years ago at my one and only doll show I have ever been to. She is a doll appraiser and a doll maker as well. She works mostly in the smaller bisque dolls. Cynthia has a big old beautiful house that she displays and sells dolls from for many different people, as well as her own dolls.  Little Myrtle Mae got left behind this time. Izannah Walker did not make any dolls that are this small ( 11 1/2" tall ) that I know of, so I have  up to this point only made them plain stitched fingers without the applied thumb, in all other ways, they are made exactly like the bigger dolls. To my knowledge, 15 inches is about the smallest dolls that Izannah made. We love the teeny tiny's  about  ( 7 or 8 inches tall ) and plan on making more this year. In fairness to Myrtle, who is named after her bigger sister, the original Myr

tle Mae who is about 22 " tall and who this little doll favors, I  am putting some of her pictures here.  Not all of the dolls are stunning, or beautiful, but have other attributes, such as sweetness, or a really primitive quaint quality that is charming, and I think little Myrtle falls into this category.