Doll-A-Day 2023 #162: Betty Curtis Boy and His Dog

   Today's doll is another dollhouse kid. It's this boy and his dog.

He's about 3 and 1/2 inches tall, and he has a little dog.

  He was made by Betty Curtis, a member of NIADA, the National Institute of American Doll Artists.

You may have seen the post I did recently on the Betty Curtis grandparents dolls. You can see that post HERE. Like them, this little guy has a cloth face over a sculpt, so he has three dimensional features. 

  He also has a hand painted face, and fuzzy hair. I think it's mohair.

  His pants have tiny beads for buttons. 

Even on the back, under his Betty Curtis tag.

His shirt is stitched around the edge of the collar.

He has stockingette legs and leatherish looking shoes.

  He has a wore armature, so he's bendy. He can even hold his dog, which I have to admit, is my favourite part of the set. I love this dog!

He's so cute! You have to look really close to tell, but he's made of pipe cleaners.

Not the kind of thin, crappy pipe cleaners you get at craft stores. These are the kind that were, (are?) sold to clean a pipe with. They are much more solid and not nearly as floppy as the craft ones. My grama used to make things out of pipe cleaners like this. I have a little chair she made, with a woven thread seat.

He has a brown tail and ears, and he even has a pink mouth.

He has a very expressive little face.

The dog is probably more expressive than the boy!

  I got this doll, and his sister, at a miniature show a couple of years ago. They were marked $15 each, but the lady was selling a whole bunch of dolls for half price. That's the same dealer and show where I got the Betty Curtis grandparents, and the Erna Meyer dolls you saw the last two days. They were all half price. I saw a pair of Betty Curtis dollhouse kids similar to these online. The boy even had a dog like mine. The girl had a doll, which mine doesn't have. They were sold by Theriault's for $150! Mine are a bit dirty and worn, whereas those were clean and unplayed with, but I still think I got a pretty good deal. 

  That's today's doll. See you again tomorrow with some good news and another doll!

 

Doll-A-Day 2023 #159: Rag Doll Pin

   Today's doll is one I bought at the yard sale full of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls last week. She's this little girl.

And as you can see, she really is little. She's about 2 1/2 or 3 inches tall.

 She has pigtails, but no other hair.

           And a simply drawn face.    

                                                                

She's actually a pin. Unfortunately the pin is glued on. If it were stitched I would remove it.

She reminded me of a simpler version of the set of dolls I posted about HERE. 

She can hang out with them if we ever get home again!

  That's today's doll. See you again tomorrow.  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #64: Worry Dolls

   Today we're looking at some tiny little dolls called Worry Dolls.

These worry dolls are about an inch tall, but some worry dolls are about twice as big.

They're very tiny and made of scraps, basically. They usually consist of scrap fabric and heads of thread or paper. These have wire arms and legs. 

They are usually seen in small wooden boxes or fabric bags. These came in a bag.

  Worry Dolls originated  in Guatemala. Also called Trouble Dolls, the purpose of the dolls is to remove your problems. You tell your problems, or worries, to the dolls, and put them under your pillow. During the night they take your worries away, and in the morning the dolls have gifted you with the wisdom to solve your worries. 

The idea came from a Guatemalan legend about a Mayan princess named Lxmucane, who received a gift from the sun god, which would allow her to solve any worry.

  These days the worry doll is a popular souvenir to bring back from Guatemala or Mexico. They are even found around here a lot. I suppose they are rejected souvenirs.

  See yo again tomorrow.

I Just Discovered Milly's Miniatures! A Look at A Tiny Robin Hood

   As I have mentioned before, Ken and I have been taking one or two days a week, when he's off from work, to just take off in the car and have a 'Fun Day'. We pick a direction and just drive off. If we come to something we think is interesting, we stop. Yesterday we ended up in a town an hour or so away, and were looking for somewhere to eat, when I spotted a store that looked like it had antiques amongst it's cottagy décor items. So we went in for a look. I was looking in a showcase when Ken pointed out a little Robin Hood doll. He was about 3 and a half inches tall, maybe, with nice detailed clothes and a tiny bow.

  He's standing on a piece of paper that says he's a 'Milly's Miniatures' and that he came 'From the birthplace of James Whitcomb Riley'. Below that, written in pencil, it says 'Robin Hood'.

He's stuck to the paper, which makes it hard to read. 

He has a velvet tunic and a brown pipe cleaner bow. I'm not sure what his feet are made of.  

I did have him out of the showcase, but I didn't think to have Ken take some pictures until he was put back and the employee had gone back to her other work. So, sorry, these are through the showcase glass and hard to see.

I was confused by the blob of fuzzy brown yarn in the lower part of his face. Is it a mustache? A furry mouth? What?

  I was quite taken with little Robin Hood, despite his weird fur blob mouth...or nose. but NOT by his price! He was $135! What?! 

  I had never heard of Milly's Miniatures. When I got home I researched 'Milly's Miniatures'. I found a picture of another Milly's Miniatures Robin Hood, and he doesn't have the blob. He does, however, have a satchel and a little arrow for his tiny bow, (which is wooden and not pipe cleaner like the other guy's.), and a feather in his hat. I could see something was missing from the other guy's hand.

This picture is from his 2018 auction listing, where he was estimated at $400 to $600!

 He was a local boy too, as his auction was in Parma Ohio. That's your neck of the woods, Barb.

I think the blob was originally a mustache. If he was made in the 1940's, the memory of 1938's "The Adventures of Robin Hood", with Errol Flynn and his tiny mustache, would have been in Milly's mind.

The outfit was certainly based on his, but where is Milly boy's tiny beard?

  It turns out that Robin was made by a lady named Mildred Davis. She made the dolls from the 40's to the 60's.  Mildred was born in 1900, and lived in Greenfield, Indiana. One thing I read said that the dolls were made to raise money for the Riley Old Home Society, at James Whitcomb Riley's birthplace in Greenfield. I hadn't heard of Milly's Miniatures, but I had heard about  James Whitcomb Riley's home though, because we see signs for it every time we go to Ivy's college. James Whitcomb Riley was a very successful poet who lived from 1849 to 1916. His work was extremely popular, and he did live readings, at one point earning $1000 a week. He was born in Greenfield Indiana, and his boyhood home is now a historical site. He later lived in Indianapolis, and the house there is a museum now, fully decorated in the furniture and style of the 1800's. Doll people may be familiar with James Whitcomb Riley's work without even realizing it. That's because Raggedy Ann was named after two of his most famous poems, "The Raggedy Man" and "Little Orphant Annie". ("Little Orphant Annie has nothing to do with the comic strip/movies/character 'Little Orphan Annie', but it is the source of the phrase 'the goblins'll get you if you don't watch out'.)

   I managed to find a picture of the little booklet that came with the dolls, that lists the dolls available. There was a group of dolls based on characters in Riley poems, a group of 'Indiana characters', and a group based on nursery rhymes. 

Ken wondered how many she would have made of each one. Good question, but I don't have an answer.

  If the dolls were 'from the birthplace of James Whitcomb Riley', that would make them strictly a local product. That would be why they were described on line as 'hard to find' and 'rare', and it accounts for that price! The only way they would originally have gotten out of the general area of Greenfield is if someone visiting Riley's home from far away bought one of the dolls and took it home with them. That's possible, since the dolls seem to have been sold as souvenirs from the home. Of course, I'm not sure how far people would have come in the 40's or 50's to see Riley's home, but they might have visited while passing through. It might also mean that a lot of local people might have visited the home and bought some of the dolls. They might be floating around here all over the place, especially in Indiana. That brings me back to Ken's question. If only one lady was making these dolls, how many could she possibly have made? Just how rare are they? Will I ever find another one 'in the wild'?

  The dolls originally came on their piece of heavy paper, like Robin Hood, inside a small box like a box jewelry comes in. There were two different size boxes because the dolls ranged from 3 to 4 inches tall, . They also came with the list, and a small paper describing the doll. The dolls have embroidered faces and cloth outfits. They seem to have a pipe cleaner armature, but I'm still not sure what those feet are. From what I can tell, it isn't metal.

  I've developed a thing for small dolls lately, like Tiny Town dolls, the Caco dollhouse dolls and the Baps dolls. Milly's Miniatures gives me another series to be on the hunt for, and-- yay!---they're local! I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for these little guys now. I'm anxious for the next time we head toward Ivy's school, not only to see Ivy, but to hunt down some of Milly's Miniatures.

What I've Been Up To: Little Felt People

   I started this post back when Ivy was still home. That's why it is a little outdated. I held off posting until I finished what I had started, (which I am notorious for doing!) Last night I finished clothing on the last of the little felt people I had completed. Well, except for shoes. So. Here's the post. 

  Well, things continue to go wrong. Now I'm having problems with either my camera, or my memory card. I've taken pictures, including unboxing ones for a review, and they just aren't on the card. While I sort that out, and while I spend time watching TV with Ivy, I have been working on some other things. I've been wanting to try to make some dollhouse people, sort of in the style of Baps dolls. I started on some a week or so ago. They have wire armatures so they can bend, and are then covered with felt to pad them out, and are then sewn into their final felt 'skin'. The face is painted on, and clothes are added.  I made the first one without a template, just drawing a shape on the felt, then folding it in half to make sure the shape was symmetrical. I tried sewing the skin wrong side out, and then turning it and putting the felt covered armature inside, so the stitches didn't show. That proved to be hard to do, (Felt and felt tend to sort of 'velcro' together, making it hard to scoot the armature inside.) Also, it stretched the 'skin' so much that the stitches showed anyway.  It came out a little stubby, and I used brown felt. Ivy asked, "What are you making, a demon gingerbread man?" When I finished him, face painted and clothes on, she was still calling him the 'Demon Gingerbread Man'. At least I finished him!

     His stitches show badly, because I tried to sew him wrong side out and then turn the fabric right side out. He's so small that it strained the stitched turning him. It wouldn't be so bad if I had thread that matched his 'skin', but I didn't at the time. His arms are also a bit lumpy and mismatched. 

  After Ivy left for college I put hair  on him. I think he looks a lot less Gingerbread Manish now.

His jacket has some bad stitching.

  With his hair he's just under 3" tall.

  Then I actually did a smart thing I seldom do, and that's make a template. I made another doll. I tried to make the legs and arms longer, and give it more of a neck. This turned out better, but the feet ended up turned out to the side. 

  This time I sewed the 'skin' over the armature right side out. The stitches show, but it looks all right. I painted a face on it. I decided to make it into a girl. I was digging around for some thread I had that reminded me of the hair on Baps dolls. It's not quite as thin, but it works. I thought she'd look good in red, and pulled out some red and white gingham and made her a dress. Ivy said, "What are you making, Mary Ann?!" (As in "Gilligan's Island".) I saw the resemblance, but it wasn't intentional. I said no, but Ivy said, "I think you are." To throw off the Mary Ann vibe, and get her back to more of how I saw her, I made her a red cape. You'll see that in the last picture.

She's 4" tall.

She has some glue showing in her hair.

  After I made 'Mary Ann' I worked on a new template. I changed it and changed it, and ended up cutting the pieces and taping them together to get it how I thought it should be. Then I made a doll from it and found that I had not taken the extra bit of felt needed between the legs to cover the edges of the legs. The felt has to be cut out with the figure sort of spread eagle, with the arms and legs sticking out. Otherwise there isn't enough felt to go all the way around the limbs.

  I made more dolls. I ended up with these four dolls, the first one being 'Mary Ann'.

They were getting better, but that second one had a head like an alien. It would be even bigger once the hair was added. I finally decided I really didn't like the shape of the head. 

  So I figured the back of the head would be hidden by hair, so I decided to make a cut in the back, and reshape the head by stitching around the top and pulling it into a smaller. rounder shape. 

  I had all these dolls and none of them were finished. Each one was a little better though. But finally I decided to stop making dolls and finish the ones I had first. I have a bad habit of making parts or even whole dolls, and putting off clothing them. I dread it so much because it's hard for me, and I'm not very good at it. 

  Once I had painted the face on it, I saw the alien head one as kind of a 1930's lady. I don't know why.  I had to figure out what to do about her hair. I had yellow thread like the brown thread I used on TDGBM, but I had to figure out her hair style. You know by now that I don't even do my own hair. I think she turned out pretty  good in spite of that.

She's 4" tall, to the top of her bun.

 I had in mind that she should have a belt the shade of the dark maroon in the flowers on her dress. I was thinking of thin plastic cord. I knew there was something made of that stuff in this house somewhere, but couldn't for the life of me think where it might be. I ended up searching all over for what I wanted, and ended up having to buy a whole pack of the stuff for just the inch or so I needed! In fact, I bought two packs. the first one was too wide and too stiff, so it was returned and I bought the second one. Neither one of them had the colour I wanted. They were mostly very basic colours, although the second one offered a little more variety.

So she ended up with a white belt.

   I meant to make  the two smaller dolls into a little girl, and an even littler boy. But when I started making the larger one, he began to look more like a boy to me. He's now the older brother I guess. 

He's 3 1/2" tall.

She's 3" tall.

  So here are all the ones I just finished. I just finished the little girl last night

  Of course they all need shoes now, so they aren't completely finished. I couldn't think what I should make shoes out of. They're so tiny that anything with much thickness to it would make the feet look huge. I finally thought of the thin,  modern felt I have. I think that might work. I also want to make a duffle coat for the boy from the blue flannel I bought when I got the red for his pants. One was going to be his shirt and one the pants, but then I decided to give him a plain cotton shirt. 

  So that's one of the things I've been doing. I am way behind with things I want to post, so I WILL see you soon.