Doll-A-Day 2023 #174: Ivy Cottage Mystery Doll

   A couple of posts ago we looked at the small Violet Pickles figure from Ivy Cottage, the series of books and dolls by E.J. Taylor. I mentioned that my post on the Ruby and Violet soft dolls from the series is one of my all time most viewed posts, and that people often message me, wanting to know if I have any spare Ruby and Violet dolls to sell. The books seem to have captivated a lot of people, who remember them fondly from their childhoods, or from reading them to their children. Those people now want the dolls and books for their children or grandchildren.

  Well, a while back a lady messaged me on the blog's Facebook page about an unusual doll she had recently bought online. The doll was obviously an Ivy Cottage doll, but neither of us had ever seen her before. The lady asked me if I knew, or could find out, anything about her doll. I was intrigued, and said I'd try. 

  I intended to write to the author of the books and creator of the dolls, E.J. Taylor. I even found an address that I thought might work. But, I procrastinated, and things arose that made me forget. I remembered every now and then, but I really wanted to be able to print my letter, because my handwriting is atrocious. Some of you who have received things from me, addressed in my psychotic scrawl, can testify to this. (I had a teacher once who told me that I 'write like a boy', whatever that means.) But our printer was constantly not working. While working on that recent post, I found that E.J. Taylor passed away last December.

  So now I have only the internet to rely on to solve this mystery. So, my fellow detectives, here are the facts, accompanied by pictures kindly provided by the doll's owner:

  The doll in question is 12 inches tall. 

She looks like the Horsman Rag Bag Annie doll I posted HERE. However, that doll was only 6 inches tall. That cuts out the idea that this doll may have been someone's one of a kind based on the book, using the other Rag Bag Annie doll. Also, her owner says her outfit and box seem factory made.

She's wearing a hairnet, which makes me think of more high end dolls than the other Ivy Cottage dolls.

She was packaged attached to a box with no writing, and had a faked up miniature copy of "Christmas at Ivy Cottage" as her accessory.

The book is just a paper picture glued to cardboard.

 Since she is wearing an angel costume and comes with a fake copy of "Christmas at Ivy Cottage",  I am assuming she is Rag Bag Annie, who, if I recall correctly, was cast, over rich girl Cecily Thistle, as the angel in the school play, in that book.  

She has a vinyl head, arms, and legs, described by her owner as 'almost squishy', and a soft, stuffed body.

  She is attached to her insert with twist ties. 

Here's the back of her pretend book.

  Okay. The question is, was this doll ever released, or is this a prototype? Where did it come from? If you have any information about this doll, please let me know.

  See you tomorrow for another doll.doll-   

My All Time Top Ten Posts as of January 2020

  Don't forget to check our Facebook page,(Except for you Dorothy.) for the latest posts, which include a really cute stop motion felt video!
  A while back I did a post reviewing my top ten posts of all time. I thought it would be interesting to look at that again and see if anything has changed. So what are my all time Top Ten Posts?
  Well the number one post hasn't changed. It's my post on Mrs. Beasley,her history, my life long love, and a Yard Sale Tale.

My Beasleys.

Who would have thought Mrs. Beasley would still draw such a mob?! I always wanted a Mrs. Beasley. Apparently, I'm not the only one with that obsession.
  The second place post is even more strange,because they are dolls I think few people have even heard of. They're Violet Pickles and Ruby Buttons.

Maybe the creator of Violet and Ruby is the draw. He's E.J. Taylor,a doll maker who decided to write and illustrate a book series, Ivy Cottage, on Violet and Ruby,two live rags dolls who live with Miss Biscuit, the old lady who made them. 

E.J. Taylor makes beautiful dolls,with a  lot of personality.
 

Or maybe it's just the words 'Ivy Cottage' that are the draw! If you Google Ivy Cottage a lot of shabby chic stuff comes up.
   The third place goes to my post called Happy Beatles Birthdays Part 2. I covered various things including Christmas ornaments and figures. Oh. And Tammy's shirt.

Up at number four we have Little Miss No Name.

She was one of my favourite childhood dolls. I still love her, even if Ken thinks she looks like Ignorance and Want from "A Christmas Carol" and can't look at her!
  Coming in at number five is an Ai doll,Bee Balm.

I've done posts on several Ai dolls, but none of them have reeled in as many views as Bee Balm. I have no idea why.
  Number six is another doll few people have heard of, so his position on the list surprises me. He's That Kid.

That Kid and Mrs. Beasley are the two dolls I longed for the most as a kid. I have three of these boys now, including the one I finally got that still talks! I did a post with video so everyone could hear him, since I don't think anybody has posted his voice online. My video doesn't seem to work, but one day I'll get that fixed. He did come with his box and instructions, so if anybody is interested you can see that post HERE.
  Number seven is another of my childhood dolls. She's Newborn Thumbelina.

My newborn Thumbelina,me, my mom,and my sister,Christmas day.

I asked for this doll one Christmas after spotting her at the local Hart's store. I think Mom and Dad must have bought her that day behind my back.
  Number eight is a strange little kid. If you thought That Kid was weird looking, check out this Ratti Tjorven doll.

She's one of those dolls that you like, but, on the other hand... A lot of people seem to like her though.
Number nine is a real surprise. But maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it's because a lot of people my age remember Topo Gigio fondly from the Ed Sullivan Show.
 

On the other hand, it could be because, unbeknownst to me, he has been popular all around the world since before the Ed Sullivan Show, and he still is in many countries.
  It has just occurred to me that I should have started with number 10 and been counting down. Oh well. Too late now. So here's number ten. Another fairly surprising one. It's my post on Penny Brite.
 

Penny Brite was a doll made in the 60's by Deluxe Reading, but I don't know of many people that remember her, or collect her. I have my childhood doll, and my sister's...and a boat load of others now. (That's the boatload above.) I have posted another Penny, and a couple of clones, but this post tops those by a long shot.
  So those are my all time top ten most popular posts. I last did this in 2016. Most of the top ten from that list are included here, even if some of them have switched their places around. At least one dropped off the top ten list. Penny Brite wasn't even on it the last time. I wonder what will be the Top Ten the next time I do this.

The Ivy Cottage Pop Up Playhouse

  I've had a doll post in the works, but things aren't cooperating. I can't find all the clothing to go with the doll, that I KNOW I have. I'm still looking for the last few things, so bear with me. On the bright side, doing research for the post I discovered that some other pieces I have that I hadn't yet identified, belong to said doll! So there will be some pieces included that I didn't even realize I'd have for the post.
  In the meantime, it has been ages since a kind reader named Christel gave me some information--- and even photos!---- of a toy I have been curious about for ages. I was having trouble moving the pictures from her email to my picture folder,and just didn't have time to figure out the problem with Christmas and all. Then I nearly forgot about it, because my brain is like that these days! But tonight I remembered again when I was actually at the computer, so now, with the photo problem straightened out, here we are.
  Some time ago I posted about the Ivy Cottage dolls,(You can read those posts HERE and HERE.) and books by E.J. Taylor.

The main characters of the Ivy Cottage books, rag dolls Violet Pickles and Ruby Buttons.

The first book in the series, which eventually included 5 books.

When my daughter Emma was small we read the Ivy Cottage books often, and we both had a set of the Ruby and Violet dolls. Emma also had a few of the Ivy Cottage PVC figures that Ken and I bought in Canada.

The back of the doll boxes shows the PVC figures at the bottom.

 She had Ruby Buttons and Miss Biscuit, and their goose Hanna Honk. But we were never able to find Violet. Here I have to stop and tell you that after all these years Emma's collection is complete! Christel and I were emailing about Ivy Cottage and I mentioned our Violet-less existence.Christel very kindly offered to send Emma a spare Violet she had! Even at 24 Emma was excited to receive her.
  The one thing I had never been able to find, or even find any information about, or even a picture of,was what was called on the back of the doll boxes and PVC packages 'the Ivy Cottage Pop Up Playhouse'. (Believe me, there is NOTHING on the entire internet about this house.) I never knew if it was a child's playhouse, or a house for the dolls.Either sounded pretty cool to me. The artwork in the books was beautiful.

If you read the other posts you'll have seen this before, but it's probably my favourite picture from any of the books.

I have searched for all these years for something about this house. And recently Christel dropped out of the sky with pictures of it!

  Christel bought her house second hand, and it didn't come with any furniture, so we still don't know if it originally came with any accessories.
   Here's what Christel has to say about the Ivy Cottage house:

Officially, it was known as the “Horsman Ivy Cottage Playhouse” from the “Horsman Design Studio”, and it was unfortunately made entirely of folding cardboard.  From the outside, it was covered with a leafy print, with a few “windows” spilling “light”, so it did not live up to my hopes.  

Because the construction was so flimsy, the floors would simply buckle up.  If you added furniture, it simply slipped into the corners, making it impossible to play with it. The cardboard insured that it would not survive. 
 

   So it's pretty disappointing to find this out after all these years of wondering! I still thought it was worth posting about the house though, simply because there is NO information about this house out there, let alone photos. So thanks to Christel for solving the mystery. Maybe now this house will no longer drive people crazy!

Doll-A-Day 321: Ivy Cottage Cecily Thistle and Rag Bag Annie

  Today's doll is two again, and part 2 of yesterday's post on Ivy Cottage dolls. ("Ivy Cottage"  being the series of children's books written by doll artist E. J. Taylor, and featuring a pair of live rag dolls named Violet Pickles and Ruby Buttons, and their creator and 'mom' Miss Biscuit.) Today's dolls are Cecily Thistle and Rag Bag Annie, also made by Horsman.

These dolls are much smaller than yesterday's 12" rag dolls. These dolls are about 6" tall.

They don't exactly qualify as 'rag dolls', since they have cloth bodies, with vinyl heads, and  vinyl arms and legs.

The Rag Bag Annie character is from "Christmas at Ivy Cottage", and doesn't appear in any of the other Ivy Cottage books.

She looks a lot more innocent and sweet in the book illustrations. That scarf is supposed t be a shawl.

Are there 6" rag dolls of Ruby and Violet too? I want to see them! By the way, if that paragraph on the box doesn't make sense, it's because two of the sentences are transposed.

UPDATE: Yes, there are 6" dolls of Ruby and Violet! I found these pictures on an old auction, and I am borrowing them because there are no others available. I will gladly remove them if asked.

I have no idea where Cecily Thistle comes from, as she doesn't appear in any of the books, and I think we have them all now.

We had all the books,(Ivy Cottage, Goose Eggs, Rag Doll Press, and The Thorn Witch.), except "Christmas at Ivy Cottage", so I had never heard of Rag Bag Annie until I happened to see the auction for these two online. Ken bought them for me for Christmas last year.

Rag Bag Annie was supposed to be poor. I'm guessing Cecily Thistle is a rich girl.

In that case you'd think she could afford an orthodontist.

Christmas at Ivy Cottage only seemed to be available in Britain, since I hadn't found it here, or in any American online auction. It was a bit more expensive and rarely showed up for sale, so I only managed to get it last year. We're all a little too old for it around here, but I wanted to complete the set: because I'm obsessive, and in case I ever have grandchildren who want to read them all.

There may end up being some fighting, since most of the books belong to Emma, except for The Thorn Witch, which is Ivy's, and Christmas at Ivy Cottage, which belongs to...me?
  The books aren't the easiest in the world to find, and "Christmas at Ivy Cottage", at least, can be a bit expensive for a paper back book. The writing isn't the best in the world.(E.J. Taylor wasn't a writer, after all.) But the books are a world of their own. The idea is charming. The stories are sweet, and simple, and full of good hearted acts. The illustrations are beautiful, and the characters are loveable.Even grouchy, persnickety Violet shows her warm side quite often. "Christmas at Ivy Cottage" is the last book written, and the story seems rushed. But to children, the simple story of a friend in need and her friends' acts of kindness will seem just right. With all the unsettling things children are subjected to these days, these quiet little stories of love and friendship are just what we need.
**UPDATE** The Ivy Cottage Pop Up Playhouse found! See it HERE!