Charlotte is showcasing her cloth dolls today…

Hi everyone,
Charlotte sent me these pictures back on July 18th and I thought you might like to see some dolly pictures instead of a question today. I REALLY enjoyed your answers to the “Celebrities” you all have seen in your lifetime. It was so interesting and a fun read. Thanks so much!

Okay, Charlotte, it’s all yours today…

Hi Jeanne! As I mentioned on the blog recently, I did a presentation at my ASG (American Sewing Guild) neighborhood group meeting this week, a “trunk show”, if you will, of cloth dolls I have made in the past. Some of the sofa sisters wanted to see the pictures, and I thought it might help you out to have something to share, so here they are, and I will add comments for each one.

The first picture shows nine of my cloth dolls all together. There are two tiny ones not included in this picture, but there is a separate picture of them, at the end.

The second picture is a little closer look at some of the dolls. In the back is the Waldorf style doll, Purleyetta and Her Quilt, and Alice Izabelle; in front are A Rose Is a Rose and Arabella May.

The third picture shows the rest of the dolls, with one duplicate, Alice Izabelle on the far left. Then Miss Terry, the Modern Woman, and Amethyst, a Fairy. In front is (spew alert!!) Lilly Loo Latrine, the Bathroom Fairy!

The fourth picture is of three dolls I made from patterns by elinor peace bailey (yes, she signed her names with no capitol letters). I took two classes from elinor many years ago (she has since passed away), and included in the price of the class was her painting the face of one doll, so two of these dolls, The Modern Woman and Lilly Loo Latrine, have faces painted by her. I painted the face of Amethyst, the fairy. The Modern Woman is VERY long!! She was really a hoot to stuff–picture it, you hold her upside down between your knees, with one of her legs resting on each of your shoulders! Lilly Loo Latrine has a poem included in her pattern, which is hysterical. Her hair is fringe, which I wound around and around her head, and glued a bow on top so you can’t see the fringe header! Amethyst’s hair is actually shredded packing material for a gift bag! It’s shiny and shimmery, just what you would expect a fairy to have! She has silk flowers on her costume and in her hair. (I didn’t think to take a picture of the back of her hair and her “wings”, which are really a large tulle bow.)

The fifth picture shows those dolls again, with the patterns I used.

The sixth picture shows two “one-of” dolls, Miss Terry on the left, and A Rose Is a Rose. Miss Terry was a “mystery doll” where you did one part of the doll before you got the instructions for the next part. Her brooch is a gaudy, glittery gold button; she thinks it is quite stylish! She also has rosebud trim on the other side of her jacket. A Rose…is a small doll from a pattern by Barbara Willis, which I found in a magazine. I made it for my Aunt Linnea when she was ill one time. After she died, my cousin asked if there were any things of her mom’s I would like to have back, and I mentioned the doll, so she sent it to me.

The seventh picture shows three dolls I have made from the book Prairie People. When I saw the section about naming your doll (“if she hasn’t told you her name already”), I knew I had to get this book! The authors included a lovely long list of names from the 1700 and 1800 genealogical records to choose from, if we didn’t want to use the names they gave the dolls they designed! From left to right are Purleyetta and Her Quilt, Arabella May (from the Tarsey Irene pattern), and Alice Izabelle (from the Cyrilla, Marilla and Drucilla pattern). Purleyetta was the first doll I made from this book, and with her I learned why you want to add textile medium to your paints that you use on fabric!! (The paint doesn’t go on or dry as smoothly without the textile medium.) Arabella May is from the pattern I’ve used the most from this book, I think–I made two for my cousin, one for my grandma, and I’m not sure how many others over the years, which I’ve given as gifts. I even taught a class to my long ago quilt group, using an adaptation of this pattern. Alice Izabelle is wearing a straw doll bonnet I purchased; I had to line the crown with fabric, as it was catching on her hair, which is wool roving.

The eighth picture is of the same dolls with the book, Prairie People, in front of them.

The ninth picture is the Waldorf type doll I made. As I recall, she was the first doll I made, done in a class several years before I made Purleyetta or the others. Her body is made of a cotton knit fabric and she is stuffed with wool batting, so is warm and cuddly when you hold her. You roll the wool batting, insert it into the body or limbs, and the stuff more wool inside the roll to fill her out. Her hair is a crocheted cap of curly yarn, stitched in place, and then loose yarn pieces added for bangs and her hair in back. I named her Beda (pronounced “BAY-dah”) after my Grandma Larson, who died in 1969.

The last picture is of two doll pins I made. The first one I made perhaps 30 years ago, when we had a small doll club and did little projects like this. A lady had bought a couple of similar doll pins somewhere, and figured out a pattern that she shared with us. I wish I had a picture of the original ones she showed us; I’m sure they weren’t exactly like this, as she just had to figure it out best she could. Anyway, the arms and legs are various beads, some sourced from thrift store jewelry, others purchased. Their hair is strung seed beads that are looped back on themselves. I have made a lot of these and given them as gifts thru the years. The pink one is the first one I made; the other one I started quite some time ago and put it aside; I just recently finished it. And yes, I do wear them sometimes!