New Dolls and work in progress

 Having a lot of trouble with my blog, not being able to get on and work on it has been a big problem. We finally figured a solution for now. Most of my time is taken up with taking care of my husband and mother who is 91 years old Jan. 7, so you can imagine how much of my time it takes to tend to their needs, but I do manage to work in some doll time as well. Here are two of my efforts that are farther along than these others you will see. I made another small version of my Izannah Walker reproduction doll that I bought from Kathy Patterson some years back. These copies are not true. They are smaller, made of cloth instead of composition heads, and  while they resemble the doll, they look different than her doll does. The composition heads to me are not satisfying. The reproductions should be made of cloth as far as I am concerned. The other one is  a large doll made using my own mold. She is pretty I think and I tried as I always do to give her the Izannah traits. Izannah's dolls hair varied with the dolls. Some were very dark, others had a sienna color mixed in the base of the curls. In the last several dolls I made, I painted the hair dark with the curls dark too, but will trend back to the more familiar side and neck curls with the lighter sienna color. What do you see when you look at early work that is just white and so far from finished? They look like aliens from space, but they also have character already in their faces. Harkness is the boy on the left, another large mold in the middle and another little Izannah on the right. The eyes are wonky and shoulders not quite perfect, but I stopped trying to correct these things to much. Our black Izannah is having her final stockinet put on and I always enjoy working on these. That face is so sweet to me. See the legs and feet, I had to make many corrections to get this foot, and I found out how to put the curve in the middle of the foot underneath, it was an accident. I had to go bac

k and sew the foot together and had to sew farther up on the outside of the foot and low and behold, I had that curve you see in Izannah's feet. Well, have a look and I hope enjoy the post.

A New Doll and Other Izannah's

 Here is a new doll. About 20 inches tall, Pressed Cloth Head. I think she is one of my best ones. This post is to put some of the latest dolls pictures on here. I hope you enjoy seeing them.

Izannah Walker Style Cloth Doll " Clima Hamilton "

It has been a long time since I have posted. Renovating houses takes up alot of time, but I have managed to finish one doll and have several smaller ones in the works. This doll is about 20 inches tall with a pressed cloth head, stitched hands and booted feet. It seems like it took a hundred forevers to finish her and glad I am to be done. There are alot of things that complicate and slow down doll making, but you just have to do the necessary and get back to the doll making as much as you can, allowing for time and the energy to do justice to the dolls. When you are to tired to work on the dolls, I say don't, because you will end up doing the work over again. Earlier this year I happened up on some yardage of the hard to find over dyed green calico fabric. For a long time on ebay I would see it in small pieces, and they were expensive too, so I spent some of my money from selling some dolls, and got as much of this fabric as I could. You notice I said selling some dolls, this is because it took several to buy supplies, namely two different patterns of the green over dyed fabric. Buying the antique fabric causes some hard decision making, because it is super expensive, it can be unusable when you get it, or you might not be able to get your money back on the dresses, or, you love it to much to be willing to give it away on dresses for your dolls, and plan to save it for the antique dolls only. I have made lots of dolls using antique fabric and only rarely regretted it, because sometimes the fabric is so old, it will have a smell that you cannot wash out. On the other hand, if you expect to get more money from the dolls,  people expect to get antique fabric. Always a quandary over using new reproduction cloth, ( no problems there ) or the old cloth which might or might not cause problems. Tough call sometimes. Clima has two pettycoats, one plain cotton and a second one of vintage lace made very full, just because I love to give the dolls these slips.  Hope you enjoy seeing her.

Venus and Israel ( Izannah Walker style black dolls )

From left to right facing the picture  are Venus and Israel. These are an effort to make some dolls that are like the antique black Izannah Walker doll that was once owned by Richard Wright. These dolls are super rare and I have only seen the one from pictures. If any others are out there, they are certainly not being shown and must be owned by private collectors. My dolls are about 20 inches tall and are pressed cloth head dolls, made in the same way as the antique ones are made by pressing fabric and glue into a mold. They have on their under ware so far as I have not decided about the dress fabric. I had picked out a wonderful blue that was slightly purple, but did not have enough to make two dresses, so I will have to go back and re think the fabric. Israel has a longer face than Venus partly because her head was glued together while Israel's head was sewed together. This caused a lot of tugging and pulling trying to get the thread through the head. She also had a slightly misshapen head too. I like the dolls equally and  am not surprised they are a lot different, only sharing the same core features. I imagine there are more antique Izannah Walker black dolls in existence, I just wish they would make some pictures of them. Mor

e pictures will be put up when they are all dressed up.

Three Izannah Walker Style Cloth Dolls for the New Year

Actually Sadica was finished in December 2017, but I am including her here. She is a sweet doll and has a wonderful dress and bonnet made of antique calico fabric. She has shoes that slip on and are only made of faux leather, because I am learning to make shoes, but she is a hard size foot to fit, so these do fit her and look pretty too. Another doll I am showing has not been named yet, but she is another doll from the same mold as Claudia. She looks different, but they usually do. She is about 20 or so inches tall and has bare feet. She has no dress or bonnet as of yet, but I have been holding fabrics up to her and I think the antique Indigo blue and yellow designs is the best for her. She is sweet and probably looks more like the traditional Izannah doll than these other two. Last is my attempt to make the illusive black Izannah Walker doll owned at one time by Richard Wright. You cannot find pictures of any other black dolls made by the Walker family, I say this because it has been said that Jane Walker made the black dolls in the family, but I don't know if anyone really knows. I  am naming this doll Venus because she is so beautiful to me. She has wonderful rust colored hair made of lambskin. She is about 20 inches tall too, although she is not as heavy in the body. Looking at fabric for her is harder because she could wear so many things, but I want her to have a pretty antique Calico dress just the right color. Lots of dolls I made last year did not get put on here, but I will post them here because this is a good place to keep them. Keeping track of the dolls I made and what they looked like shouldn't be a problem, but I just cannot keep up with them to put real pictures in a book. Hope you enjoy seeing these new dolls.

Two New Izannah Walker Style Dolls

Here is Claudia, the first doll pictured with bare feet. She is about 21 inches tall. She has a pressed cloth head and all the features of the antique dolls. This doll is being made for someone, and I hope she will like her. The fabric in this post is for her dress and bonnet. It is very expensive antique calico and is such a wonderful color too. Claudia was made using a photograph of an antique Izannah Walker doll that I really love. I have a plaster mold to make other dolls like her and hope to produce some more. The second doll I am showing is also an Izannah Walker Style doll made of cloth with all the antique doll features, such as pressed cloth head, second skin of cotton, stitched fingers and applied thumbs and painted boots. The second doll has painted boots as you see. I am still debating about dress color, but am leaning to a white calico. I do like both these dolls, but intend to make many more of the Claudia style dolls, as they represent to me the almost alien head the real Izannah's have. I have also worked on Sadica  alot and she is soon to get her first oil painting. We recently went on a trip to the mountains and I hoped to see some hand crafted things, but it has all turned to things, made in china practically and was of no interest to me. I ended up buying a bucket of river rocks to bring home for $10.00 and a vintage paint brush ( old style with wide thick metal holder for the bristles. that was neat and I might try my hand at making a head on the old handle like I have seen people do in magazines. The food was good and we visited the aquarium which was very nice too. My husband got me to go up in the chair lift to the top of the mountain which was very creepy, as I am afraid of heights, but the view of the mountains was very pretty, made me want to paint them. I am glad we have the internet to see other folks hand made items, until such time as I can make some trips to see special things of interest to me as a doll lover. Sadica will get to make another appearane soon when she can show off her new face and maybe a dress too.

Sadica's Story

What you are seeing here is my poor mishapen face. My name is Sadica. My story tells the tell of why my  head should have come out of the mold, strong, beautiful and nicely formed, but as my name suggest, that didn't happen to me. Let me begin at the beginning and let you know that the person responsible for this tragedy is Martha ( the person who is making me ). Martha is kind hearted,  hard working, and is usually careful about waiting for the right time to do each step to create me, so I don't totally understand this flub up. This can't be blamed on  ( not knowing what to do ) Martha knows what to do, but sometimes I have observed, stupidity gets in the way. She isn't the brightest light bulb in the lamp, but certainly has a passing intellect. My only hope is her fierce desire to fix her mistake ( that's me ), and not only to fix me, but to make it up to me by making me extra beautiful, extra sweet and having the best clothes of all the other dolls that she didn't practically ruin from the get go. Do I sound a little peeved? Well, wouldn't you, if somebody pulled your still damp head out of the mold to early and caused your head to warp, and be weak, causing you to look odd and not knowing if you would survive. Martha has taken my head in her hands and promised me that I will be restored to beauty, that I will be her special doll and have the finest dress, the finest under things and special shoes too. She lamented over her rash decision to pull me out of my mold to soon and has lovingly been working to sooth my face and fix my boo boo's. Because I see her self recrimination over my condition, I will also help her too. I will let her put a special dyed stockinet on my head, and special paint to make me older and mellow.   Oh,  and she messed up the other doll on this post too, and I supposed she will fix her up as well. I guess it will be alright to let the other doll have a few goodies too, since she got pulled out wet as well. I have to rest now, get ready for another fix up session. When I am restored to beauty, I will write again and maybe my name will not be Sadica, but Gladica.

Making another Vestal and other new dolls.

Here is Vestal's picture. She is the second doll like Vestal I have made. She is not an exact replica of the first doll, but rarely do they look just alike. She has Vestal's head mold and shares features with her, but this doll has her own look and personality. She will have the same outfit that the first Vestal had. I have made several other dolls too and will show them to you. All of these dolls are fair size and some have the special Izannah bare feet and others the standard boots. If you have made dolls from molds then you know that when the dolls come out of the cloth mold, they do certain things that make them different. they warp, they develop air bubbles, the mold changes do to cleaning or sanding between making doll heads, so when you get a doll, either antique or new, these are the reasons your doll is unique. It is hand made and subject to many problems and also the painters hand on any given day. A few brush strokes make a huge difference in how the doll will look. I have learned no amount of experience will ever make me be able to duplicate exactly an original doll, not antique or new, so each doll becomes what she and you ultimately create together. The clothes are a little different. Color and fabric choices do make a big difference in your dolls final look. Hope you enjoy seeing these dolls in the making.