Hi everyone,
I spoke to Sarah at church this morning and she asked if things were going okay… Well, not exactly, I told her… She is going to look at it again tomorrow and see if she can find a way so I can add new photos again. She said everyone is wanting payment for their services… It doesn’t matter that I paid $437.00/year for my Blue Hosting server services, along with the SSL Certificate, which is supposed to make it a safer place to be… now they want $9.95 a month to keep the spam away and $9.95 a month to upload pictures… All I could say was “Good Grief!” Maybe she’ll have some new answers for me… but until then, I thought I’d share a few pictures of one particular doll for a few days or at least until I know what I can do. I’ll try to pick some of my prettiest dresses for “Felicity” today… she is always fun to sew for… and for me, it’s pretty easy to make them appear like they may have back in 1774!
Well, I tried to do that, and it won’t let me load any Felicity pictures…
So I guess we are switching to plan B…
Tell me in a paragraph WHY you love dolls… we have done something like this before, but we have some new ladies and it’s always fun to hear it again… Do you like to collect them, dress them, sew for them, play with them, just look at them, pose them and take pictures of them? If you are brave, you might even tell us how many you have! Whatever you want to share, we want to hear!
Well, I need to get to bed… I’ll try to add my “why” to the comments tomorrow along with yours.
See you,
Blessings, Jeanne
I’m so sorry to hear about all the problems you’re having lately, Jeanne, and it seems like it’s a money thing that’s keeping you from loading pictures now??? (I had no idea it was so expensive to have a blog in the first place! And now, extra charges??) Sounds like these businesses are in it just for the bucks. As the Bible says, the Love of money is the root of all evil (not money itself). So sad….
I have loved dolls all my life. One of the earliest pictures of me, taken when I was Maybe 2 years old, I have a doll in my hands. I played with dolls longer than most of my friends, I think, and when I was almost 15, all I wanted for Christmas was a Barbie doll!! Mom figured since Barbie was a teenager doll, it would be okay for me to have one, and then came to me and told me she had looked all over Seattle and couldn’t find one anywhere, but she would keep looking and if she didn’t find it before Christmas, we’d go shopping afterwards and I could pick out the one I wanted. (This was in 1960, when they were scarce as hen’s teeth.) I asked her, What about Miles Kimball? I had seen them in the catalog. She ordered, and the box came three days before Christmas! Mostly I sewed for Barbie, and had lots of fun doing so.
These days, I sew some for my dolls, and sometimes I just collect them. I have several “collections”, I guess you could say–five AG dolls, several Leeanns, several Ruby Reds, etc. and LOTS of Cabbage Patch Kids, including 20-some of the Originals, which are hand painted and soft sculpted to life. I’ve even been to Babyland General Hospital and watched one of mine born from the Mother Cabbage!
I am all packed now, and my ride will be here in a couple of hours. At 6:40 a.m. I leave for Michigan. Tomorrow night at this time, I’ll be at my best friend’s house. Not sure how much computer time I’ll have while I’m there, but will try to at least take a peek at the blog each night and try to keep up with things, but you may not hear a lot from me until after I’m home on the 11th.
Dear Charlotte, I wish you happy travels and beautiful weather. My sister in law lives in Marquette, Margaret Jajich on West Park Street!
I hope your trip is easy and comfortable. I will be thinking about you
Have a great and safe trip, Charlotte. I know you will be busy but hope you take some photos that can brought to the blog when it gets fixed.
Safe and happy travels, Charlotte!💕
Have a wonderful and safe trip to the lovely land of Michigan. Take lots of pictures so you hopefully can share them when you get back.
Hi Charlotte, have a wonderful and safe trip to the gorgeous state of Michigan. The lilacs on Mackinac should be blooming now and both Lake Michigan and Superior are icy cold.
My goodness, things are getting expensive there to do a blog! I certainly do hope things get taken care of for you, and that you don’t get priced out, Jeanne! I look forward to the blog each day and can’t imagine it not being here.
As far as why I love dolls, well, I have always had dolls, always had so much fun playing house and being a mother to them. I can’t even remember what my very first doll named Susie, looked like, but she must have been a rag doll. My mother threw her away because she was getting pretty raggedy, and I was heartbroken. As long as I could remember, I always had a doll to play with, and my Betsy Wetsy was my favorite for awhile, since I could give her a bottle and then she would wet her diaper, and everything else around her because I gave her more water than she could contain! Oh my goodness, the water came out from her arm sockets, her legs and even her eyes! What is it with little girls and water?😊
I always got just one doll a year, at Christmas, and would go downtown to Famous-Barr and pick out a doll that I would like for Santa to bring me. There they were, beautiful dolls on shelves behind glass doors, a magical place to be and it was so hard to pick out just one!
Since I had no brothers, dolls were always first and foremost in my young life, and back in those days, being a mother was by far the one thing most little girls dreamed about, not being scientists, doctors or lawyers. Dolls gave me that way to practice my dreams, I guess!
You might wonder why I haven’t thanked Jeanne for the wonderful posts lately, especially the one on Friday. I saw it before going to Keck USC Hospital for a replacement pacemaker for one that had been placed in 2009. It was a little more complicated this time because one of the leads was faulty and needed to be removed. I had the best possible outcome and am very thankful for the amazing team that performs these miracle procedures.
I especially enjoyed the pictures of people in Jeanne’s circle of family, friends and Sofa Sisters. This certainly feels like we would recognize each other if we got together and started chatting about the things we like on the blog. What a wonderful selection of doll dresses and accessories! It’s fun to watch Jeanne take on new challenges like purses, jewelry, shoes and hats and other accessories.
I got interested in dolls when my granddaughter was four and I gave her the American Girl Grace who is Parisian. Riya is now going to be 16 and the family is fulfilling their promise that they would go to Paris for her 16th birthday and they are leaving on June 16th! My first doll was Molly because she and I were both born in 1941. I have about eight American Girl dolls for whom I used to sew dresses. I hadn’t sewn anything in decades but said, “I can do that” when I found the blog. I’ll never tell how many RRFF dolls I have nor how many clothes for both sets of dolls. I also have a Little Darling that looks like Riya, an Ellowyn and Betsy. A dear friend gave my another doll whose maker I don’t recall. Oh, and Ten Ping, Yu Ping and Shan.
Thanks to everyone who follows the blog for their friendship and common interest in dolls. 🥰
Susette, I am thankful for those amazing doctors and surgeons for YOU! So glad your procedure went so well.
So glad to hear that you have had a good response to your procedure, Susette! So good to hear from you.
Well, hurray for a new pacemaker! That is great that it is implanted and functioning correctly. So happy for you and family too. 🙂
So happy that your pacemaker transplant went well, and you are feeling chipper!
Love to you!💕
So glad to hear that your pacemaker replacement went well. Sounds like you’re good to go now.
Hi Susette, so happy to hear your pacemaker replacement went perfectly and you are feeling better. Glad you are back on the sofa with us.
Wow, where do we begin… !! really.
Every photo of me from the early days of olden, I am holding a doll.
I loved playing with dolls, and talking with them and making them talk and happy. I have all happy memories.
Even in junior high and high school, I still had dolls to play with.
Then one day I got married and over the years, I had two dolls of my own. Live ones! What fun! I was fortunate that I did not have to work, so a few years were just being a mom with her two adorable dolls.
As they grew, we know how that goes, we get involved with outside activities and all of us grew.
Then my girls had dolls and other stuffies and we always made clothes for them even if it was a bear or an elephant or a duck.
All the dolls and stuffies had clothing.
My oldest daughter has all of the dolls now. I have two AG dolls and one doll that is about the size of a wellie wisher, but less expensive, perfect for granddaughter Lauren’s doll.
Jeanne, this is unfortunate news, – really a shabby situation! How horrible. There is a new platform called Substack, it takes a while to
learn and manage, but there are no fees. Some people charge readers, but that is optional. You might sit and look at it and see if it is good for you. No charges for anything. It is a whole new thing, but I had a blog on substack, but never really used it much. https://substack.com/@rosemaryb?utm_source=user-menu. kind of lame. One blog entry I deleted because I ranted about my little brother for a short portion. haha
I hope all of you have a blessed and lovely “low drama” week ahead.
Love, Rosemary
I think I must have looked at my daughter and son as living dolls because I totally enjoyed sewing for them and dressing them up, especially on Sunday. I worked full time, and sewing was my way of relaxing from a hard day after the kids were in bed. I remember one of the women at church one Easter admiring Andrea’s dress that I had made. She asked her if she realized how lucky she was to have a mother who could make her such pretty dresses. Andrea was about six at the time. She looked at the woman with a blank look because in her mind that’s what mothers did. I always dressed the kids in sets and sent an extra set of clothes with them to daycare. Often I would pick them up and they would be mismatched because they hadn’t changed the whole outfit. It drove me nuts. The woman at the daycare said she was trying to save me work. I often ran errands after I picked them up so I really wanted them to look nice – not to mention I had an automatic washer so what time were they saving me. But I didn’t make a big deal out of it other than to ask if they would please change the whole outfit in the future. Many told me I needed to not sweat the small stuff but to me how my children looked was not small stuff. It did make a lot of difference in my children’s feeling about themselves and even when they wore the teen uniform of jeans and t-shirts, they always looked nice.
Wow, Jeanne, I am so sorry that, no only are you not getting any help from your friend but all this extra expense is just too much. Surely there are better places for your blog to be used? I hope you can get things figured out soon. We are all pulling for you, we love this get together.
I have loved dolls as long as I can remember. My first doll that I remember was “Big Baby”, a big baby doll I carried every where. I remember some small baby dolls, one that could talk, a little black baby doll with soft curly hair. Whe i was older, the “talking” doll was used on the telephone when my friend and I were in middle school and we got together at my house on Saturdays. We would call adults, even teachers, and pretend we were on the radio. We would say they could win a prize if they could name this famous person, then we would have the doll say something over the phone. One of the teachers realized it was me and said my name for the doll, we hung up in a hurry, LOL!
When I got a bride doll my great-aunt made lots of clothes for her and then later also dressed another doll I got for Christmas. I wanted to play dolls much longer than my friends did.
I had 2 boys, so I didn’t get back into dolls until my younger son had two girls. I got into Ann Estelle dolls with them and got a few for myself. That is when I started sewing doll clothes again. I didn’t really start collecting a lot until I was 70 and went to my first doll convention. It was there I discovered Helen Kish and Riley. Boy did that start me down the slippery road. I had over 100 Kish dolls, played with them, sewed and sold clothes, and sewed for Helen Kish for several years. I went to IDEX and also her conventions, then started going to MDCC conventions. Now I still do some sewing, still get a Meadow doll at conventions. MDCC is in Savannah this year so it is just 45 miles away. It think this will be the last one I will attend. I will miss the friends I have made there over the years.
Ha ha, after reading everyone’s answers, I had to think. What was the question?? Oh, Why do you Love Dolls? Well, I guess because I’ve always liked tiny things and dolls fit into that category. I loved the miniature furniture in my first dollhouse and I also liked my early dolls, Tiny Tears, Betsy Wetsy, and a few others, but the Ginny dolls were my all time favorite. They fit in with the little things that I liked as well. Later in my youth, they came out with Ginnette, Ginny’s sister and a friend and I played with them a lot. By third grad, I was pretty much done with dolls and into other activities. Our girls had lots of dolls, like Cabbage Patch and others, but they didn’t interest me much. After I retired, I discovered Ann Estelle dolls which were lots of fun and the tiny things that fit them so perfectly. Then, others like Meadow dolls, etc. So, my collection is a much more recent one, except for my childhood dolls that are still around here. 🙂 I’m always looking for those tiny things that fit dolls, so I guess that’s why I love dolls. Makes no sense at all!
Heading for my eye appointment today, so I’ll be unable to read much until later on. Hope Jeanne can solve the blog problems. I’d be happy to pay a reasonable subscription fee, if that helps.
I am really sorry that you cannot upload pictures to your blog. More so since I’ve got a bunch ready to go . LOL But you are right about it being all about the money. I thought cable TV was getting ridiculous always having to re-negotiate deals with the channels and then raising my bill all the time, but streaming TV, which I loved at first, is getting worse. I watch HULU a lot and pay handily for the right to do so (it has live channels I watch) but recently I’ve been watching some Discovery channel programs on HULU, and the commercials are for none other than MAXX shows which I can subscribe to for $9.95 a month if I want to watch the show they just advertised – which I don’t. It’s enough that my HULU price keeps going up. One of my favorite apps was freevee which had all the seasons of many shows we watched. Prime Video did away with freevee and now I can only get some seasons of shows I watch but I can buy or rent the other seasons – or subscribe to another app to get them. And another gimmick that is showing up is I will not get the price increase if I agree to automatic withdrawal, which I don’t for several reasons. That’s happened on HULU and now on my AT&T accounts. Someone really needs to put the brakes on some of this stuff. Hopefully your problems will be fixed soon.
Now for the doll question. My history with dolls is pretty much non-existent until I was in my second childhood starting just a few years ago. I had a Toni doll, a beautiful ballerina doll, a Tiny Tears and a Ginger (Ginny) doll when I was growing up but that was the extent of my doll collection. Mostly I played with paper dolls, which I loved. They were quick to dress and I loved designing clothes for them. We could not afford much in the way of dolls, especially with four girls, which was why the dolls I did have got handed down and then disappeared. When I hear other sofa sisters talk about the dolls they had growing up, I realize my knowledge of available dolls when I was young is seriously limited. I knew about Betsy McCall paper dolls but never knew Betsy was also a doll. But I’ve sure made up for it today. I now have 83 dolls and if you count my two BAB bunnies I have 85. I love to sew for them but I sure do wish they could dress themselves because it takes days when it’s time to change their wearing attire. I have one each of the five Little Darling Sculpts and several of the L’il Dreamers, I have several RRFFs (both 14.5″ and Siblies) and the minis for Sara, Bella and Hanna. I have Paola Reinas and Paola Reina Minis, I have Ginny dolls (both vintage and modern) and an 8″ Shirley Temple. I have two Sylvia Natterer dolls, a few Heartstring dolls and an Ellowyne. I have an 8″ Tiny Betsy and a 14″ Betsy and her cousins Barbara and Linda as well as a Tonner Jane. I also have a Blythe, a Kish Chrysalis Wren and an Ann Estelle Sophie. The only large dolls I have are a 19.5″ Gotz Hannah and an 18″ American Girl #? (can’t remember). Sewing for my Hannah Gotz is like sewing for a child. So much bigger than the dolls I usually sew for. I’m sure I left some out and hopefully they won’t read this and demand a new outfit as compensation for my omission.
I also love to do photo shoots with them and try to think of interesting scenarios to go along with the pictures.
I would say that dolls bring us reminders of happy thoughts and times when we played with them as children! I remember a beautiful 18 in. doll that had a little row of teeth showing in an open-mouth smile, and a wig of blond curls….she was made from the hard composite material that many dolls were made from then. I named her Maryann. I was 9 or 10 when I received her for Christmas one year (1958 or 59)….my mother had her standing in a living room chair, dressed in a peignoir nightgown and matching robe and blue flocked slippers on which my mother had embroidered a beaded design. I can’t imagine the late night hours my mother must have put in sewing the wardrobe for that doll….I had no idea she was making the doll clothes! There were dresses, slips, a nurses white uniform & hat, a blue pinwale-corduroy princess-seamed coat and matching bonnet, all lined in pink satin. And a cowgirl outfit complete with a red cowboy printed corduroy circle skirt and matching vest with gold 1 in. fringe, white blouse, gray cowboy boots, and a real leather belt and holster, trimmed in red embroidery floss as fringe, and a little metal gun was in the holster! (I have the patterns my mother had used!)
When my first-born daughter was 5, I gave her the doll to play with….and my daughter’s curiosity got the best of her….she had poked the teeth loose and they were inside the dolls head. I was disappointed, but let it go as I had no idea of how to retrieve the teeth and put them back into place. So, the doll was stored in a clear plastic bag for several years and when I went to open the bag and take her out, there was the worst possible smell coming from her composite body. I had stored the doll wearing a pair of rubbery-plastic shoes, and have since read that a doll shouldn’t be stored with shoes like that….it can cause a chemical reaction to the body material. I did my best at trying to clean her body but the smell was so bad that you could smell it 20 ft. away. I didn’t save the doll but I did keep the wardrobe of clothes my mother had made. And have noticed a doll on the market from time to time that resembled my “Maryann”, but could not afford to purchase her. I can’t dream of getting rid of the wardrobe, so it will probably be one of those things that my daughters will make a decision about after I’m gone. And who knows….I might find a doll someday that the clothes would fit….and then I could display her.
My daughters had Barbie and Skipper dolls of course, Kimberly dolls, Tuesday Taylor doll, Shirley Temple doll, a doll whose facial expressions changed when you cranked her arm around!, Sunshine Family dolls, and my youngest daughter had Cabbage Patch dolls…all of which I sewed clothes for. They weren’t interested in my Ginny dolls and Ginny’s older sister, Jill, so I kept them and keep thinking I’ll make new dresses for them one of these days, since I saved so many doll patterns from yesteryear. I gave my daughters dolls to them and they may or may not have kept them all. Two of my daughters never had children so they may not have kept their dolls.
I have limited display places for the dolls I do have so the Ruby Red dolls are the ones I keep out on the shelves and one is usually on my work table modeling the latest outfit in progress! If I put up another shelf or two, I could probably display my AG Samantha doll, the Heidi Ott dolls, the Wellie Wisher dolls (I gave two away to Granddaughters, with wardrobes and beds with bedding that I made), my Ginny’s, Jill, and three Madam Alexander dolls I purchased at a thrift shop (they were in original outfits and in pristine condition…the owner had passed away and the family took the huge collection of those 8 in. dolls to the thrift shop…it was hard to decide on just three).
I share a home with my middle daughter and one of the bedrooms is my art & sewing room….it is my happy place and a miniature art “studio”, packed with my work table, sewing machine, supplies and fabrics, etc. I don’t want to have dolls sitting out all over the house since the home is also my daughter’s residence! And her new hobby of constructing those tiny rooms/houses is now on display on four of the bookcase shelves in the living room, and there is always another new mini-home in progress on the dining room table! I’m just happy that she has discovered a craft hobby she enjoys working on! Hobbies just make life richer when you’re working full-time!
Did any sofa sisters ever have a Doll Hospital in your town where you grew up? We had one in Mishawaka, Indiana…a couple had used their living room as their “Doll Hospital”, complete with a sales counter, glass display case and a tables where you could discuss the doll’s dilemma or “injury”! My mother took me there, with my two Ginny doll’s, for new wigs, and I picked out a blond and a brunette wig with braids! If only they would have still been there when I discovered “Maryann’s” body odor!
Wow! I didn’t realize it was so expensive to have a blog! Thank you for having one!
Why do I love dolls? I was trying to think of what to say while I was scrubbing clothes… I enjoy looking at their peaceful, happy faces. They are a safe place to enjoy. It is intriguing to know there are so many types of dolls out in the world to discover. They are a fun reason to shop at thrift stores. I found a cheap Paola Reina Las Amigas doll at a thrift store. She smells like vanilla and has beautiful freckles. Someone gave her a natural reddish looking wig. She came with a yellow and purple dress with 2 cat cartoons on it. She also has 2 purple roses. One is on a yellow sort of thing that reminds me of decoration for a gingerbread sort of dress, but it is loose and might be for a headband or else a strap for a bag. The other rose is attached to a yellow ribbon around her waist. I love her so much.
I think it is amazing that people can make dolls to be able to stand, to be able to move in so many different ways, to look so realistic. Dolls are a way to bond with our kids. My husband was encouraging me to become interested in action figures to use as dollhouse figures because they take up a lot less space than larger dolls and they are posable. He has been building a dollhouse for the girls (and with them) to use with their Calico Critters, but it is a slow process. There are some amazingly realistic action figures out there, but they can be pricey. Anyway, the top of my dresser is cleared off waiting for a dollhouse, but patience is a virtue.
I don’t want the girls to grow up too fast, and having dolls around helps with that. Also, dolls remind me of my eldest sister Chris, who gave me an American Girl Josefina, who reminds me of the Hispanic culture and the Catholic faith. And dolls are like gaining loving children and helping to stay young at heart. They are a fun way to learn about the world, history, art, culture, and to connect with people.
I had a Rainbow Brite doll when I was young, and my mother bought me a doll when I was in 4th grade. Around that time I started feeling like I was getting too old for dolls, sadly. She also gave me a newborn, puppet sort of doll that was very nice, but her head was partially made up material like nylon, and she got hurt. Sorry if the flow of words is off; there were a lot of interruptions. Thanks for asking and reading 🙂
So sorry about your continued blog problems, Jeanne. Hopefully they will be fixed soon so you can show pictures again.
I also had no idea it was so expensive to have a blog. Wow! Thank you for having one as we all enjoy seeing what you sew/find/do and what everyone else shares as well as all the camaraderie amongst the Sofa Sisters.
All services are so expensive. We haven’t had cable in probably 25 years and go with the cheapest interest/phone combo we can. If I can find a a movie or tv series for free online we do that, otherwise we watch the DVDs we’ve collected over the years.
As to why I love dolls – they are the window to the imagination! I had a handful of dolls growing up. My first and most loved is a little 12 inch Vogue baby doll that I still have along with the wardrobe and bed/cradle my grandparents made for me one Christmas. I also still have my Madame Alexander Pussycat doll, Daisy and my little Kathe Kruse, Susie and my Russian baby doll. I also had a Roddy Scottish doll who sadly is gone. I also had the Sunshine Family and a Skipper, all gone as well. I did have four play sets (Village, boat, school, and merry-go-round) of Fisher Price Little People my parents bought that I loved and still have. I also loved to draw elaborate families on paper and make up stories about them.
I fell in love with the Pleasant Company dolls when I first saw a catalog after my daughter was born. I loved the historical books, clothing, and accessories that went with each era. I like to imagine my own character and backstory for each doll as I did as a child, even adding imaginary members to my doll family.
When she downsized before college I claimed her PC Samantha and her wardrobe and that’s what started my collection.
I now have six PC/AG girls, all renamed and many times placed in a different era except Felicity. I have Samantha, Felicity, Nellie who is customized, Josefina, Caroline, and Marie-Grace as well as three Ruby Red Fashion Friends – Anaelle, Anniversary Rose, and Charming Dorothy, again all renamed with backstories.
I enjoy setting up small scenes when I can, but mostly they are just displayed lately except for the one I let my kitties always cuddle with.. I also love miniatures and it was the accurate historical miniatures that made me fall in love with PC in the first place.
I am so sorry, Jeannie, that that you still cannot get pictures on your blog. However, it’s been fun reading all of the girls answers to your questions.
I’m late getting to write today but I’ve had a lot of errands to run.
I remember when I was little I was given a large baby doll from my parents for Christmas. She had painted hair, so I never liked her as much. I wanted her to have hair I could brush. I named her Connie after a girl I knew. I had a few other dolls that were uninteresting but then came the Barbies. My girlfriend and I had Miss Revlon’s at the time, but as soon as Barbie came out, we fell in love with her. At one time we also loved the 8 inch Madame Alexander dolls, and we eventually started collecting them and giving them as gifts to each other over the years.
But back to Barbie, we had such huge imaginations and we loved the clothes that our mothers made for our dolls, and we had such dramatic stories involving Barbie and of course, the guys that they loved Ricky and David Nelson. We still keep in touch and we still have a love for dolls. We eventually grew out of the Miss Revlon and the Barbie’s though. I still collect them every once in awhile depending on who they represent.
I started collecting some of the Gotz dolls and of course that introduced me to the American girl doll, which by far is my most favorite doll of all times. I also like the RRFFs. Still, I cannot resist the American girl dolls, and all of her furniture and accessories. They are my most favorite.