GROW YOUR BLOG

  Today is the day of the Grow Your Blog party organised by Vicki from 2 Bags Full.  I haven't done this sort of thing before so it will be exciting to see what happens. This blog is about two of my passions - creating 12th scale miniature doll house room boxes and collecting 1950s 7inch Pedigree Delite dolls with star-fish hands.  I also love making 12th scale textiles such as embroidered linen, crochet, knitting and miniature crazy quilting.  I have completed a coloured mini crazy quilt but I am working on a cream one where both the fabric pieces and the embroidery is all completed in various shades of cream.  This one is still a work in progress.  I have a separate section in my side-bar with pages which cover all sorts of things from my research into the Pedigree dolls to tutorials, patterns and designs for stitching miniature textiles. I will add patterns and designs as I make them......these are free to copy. So, scroll down past the dolls for photos of the dolls house miniature room boxes and check out the side bar pages..........roll on party!!

Bookcases for my Dollshouse Library arrived.

Look what arrived today - 2 x triple bookcase shelving units plus a single unit.  I already had one triple unit so now I have enough to start staining them a dark colour, probably Walnut.  At the moment I don't have a room box prepared for them so they are just standing on the real life book case shelf but what an enormous challenge to fill them all.  I am so excited at the thought of making zillions of little books although at first, some will have to be fakes with covers over little blocks of wood.  Gradually I hope that I will be able to fill them with proper books, both bought and handmade.  I ordered these before Christmas and I nearly knocked the parcel delivery man over in my enthusiasm to get the parcel out of his hot little hands and into mine!!!! The gap in the corner of the room behind the bookcase units will be a door otherwise the room will look a little "dead-end" with no way in or out and no windows. In the centre I plan to put a large "partner's desk" (I think that is what they are called) with a green reading lamp and a couple of comfortable pseudo leather chairs.........oooooh what a great start to the new year.......Whooo hoooo.............

I have just counted the books on the extreme left hand shelf..........fifteen including one rather fat bible.  So altogether there are forty shelves and if each one takes fifteen books that is ....ummmm....600!!!!  My God, have I counted right???  I have to find/buy/make six hundred books!  Wow, I haven't got time to blog, I have to start making books - this will take forever.  Mind you, that is the beauty of miniatures, there is no time frame or dead-line.

Pedigree Delite Dutch Girl and Irish Kathleen

This is my UFO which I completed on Jan 4th.  According to the 1953 catalogue she is Kathleen whom I presume is meant to represent Ireland.  This time I was able to salvage her original green skirt with the white pleated ribbon underskirt but the rest of the outfit is a straight out reproduction copy of the original. This doll came in several different colourways, I have seen photos of her wearing a pink skirt, a blue skirt and a brown skirt.

The next day 5th Jan I finished this little one.  A Pedigree Delite doll dressed as a Dutch Girl.  This is the doll as I got her from ebay.  She was dressed in this rather hip little blue felt dress trimmed with tiny white daisies.  However, two days ago, the elastic holding her arms in place perished and her arms fell off.  As I was changing the elastic band for a new one I noticed that on her back was the residue from (a) darker blue felt and (b) traces of red and white stripes.  I looked at my list and at the catalogue and found out that my ordinary little girl was originally a Dutch Girl.  Here she is before I started.

 And here she is now next to the picture in the 1953 catalogue.  The colours are exactly the same as two other Dutch Girls which I have seen on the internet although I think the size of my blue and white checks is closer to the ones in the original catalogue.

Pedigree Delite Fairy Doll

Yesterday the two little Pedigree Delite dolls and the copy of the 1953 Pedigree Doll Catalogue arrived - it was my Christmas present from my husband so it wasn't very late seeing as they had to travel to Australia from UK.  This is what they looked like when they were on ebay.......

The little sailor was great but the poor fairy had seen better days.  She was in really good condition apart from the elastic holding her arms to her body which had perished so they had come adrift.

About two years ago, I bought a "made in Hong Kong" doll from either late 1950s or early 1960s when "hard plastic" was so thin that it was almost flexible and you could actually squish it.  I bought it from a charity shop and they were almost giving it away. Her mouth was painted with almost white lipstick, her staring eyes were fixed and the paint was coming off her moulded hair.......she was horrible and scary looking to be honest - but she was dressed in a genuine net skirt trimmed with silver ribbon and tinsel from that period.  She also held a wand (silver stick) which had lost it's star. Well, once the little tatted fairy arrived, I cut off the Hong Kong doll's dress and also the ragged fairy skirt and hair-bow (which frankly had gone a ghastly shade of yellow) from the Pedigree doll and redressed her.  So while her outfit is totally repro, it is repro from the correct period.

Here she is now......she doesn't look like the same little doll and while she is no longer authentic, she stands happily among my other Pedigree Delite dolls which are both authentic and re-dressed.  I'm happy, she's happy and the other dolls are happy to welcome the Fairy among them.