Doll Show Haul Part 1: Lotte Sievers Hahn Boy and a Lovely Lady

   As usual, I am behind in things. I haven't shown you what I got at the doll show yet. I didn't get many things, since I was trying to be good, both with money and space. I was trying to make it all the way around the show before I bought anything, because I had a limited budget and you never know what you might find farther on. (Of course, you risk it not being there when you go back for it too.)  But I found this beautiful little guy for only $10. I had to snap him up!

  He's a Lotte Sievers Hahn doll. You may have seen my others HERE, HERE, and HERE. This guy is a different size from any of my others. Most of the Lotte dolls I have are 5 inches tall. I also have two 8 inch ladies. This guy is somewhere in between, at about 6 inches.

  Lotte Sievers Hahn dolls are made in Germany. The company is very well known for their carved wooden nativities. Like the other Lotte Sievers Hahn dolls I have, he's carved from limewood, with hand oil painted eyes and mouth.

  He originally had a hat. I don't mind him being hatless though. I can always make him a felt hat. 

  His clothes are felt and his hair is what I would call embroidery floss.

    His clothes are made of felt.

 

    The arms on these dolls lift up, but can't hold the pose. 

The originals had strips of leather that connected the arms to the shoulders. I don't know what they use these days. Yes, they are still making these dolls. While my others are probably from the 1940's, I think this guy is recent.

    They have 'mitten hands'.

  Their legs are pin jointed at the hips, so they can move their legs and sit down.

  Isn't he sweet?! I fell in love with these dolls the first time I saw them on line. That's when I bought the batch of little ones. The dealer I got this one from always has very beautiful and interesting dolls. They're mostly very expensive, and often museum quality dolls. She had this little guy, and two Lotte Sievers Hahn finger puppet girls. The girls were tiny, and looked brand new. They were only $10 each too, and I would have loved to have had them. But as I said, I was being good. I had a limited budget for the day, so I had to be choosey too.  

  After I got this guy I didn't get anything for quite a way around the show. I looked, but passed things I liked. I was trying to see everything before I spent my money. That's a good idea in one way, but on the other hand, if there's something you can't live without, you'd better get it, because it may not be there by the time you get back to it. The next thing I bought was quite a way farther on, and it was only a dollar. It's a pretty, antique, real baby dress.

  Don't ask me what I'm going to do with all these antique baby dresses I keep buying. I probably have some dolls they'll fit.

  The next thing I bought I actually passed, and got on my second trip around, not long before I left. I went all the way around, having only spent $13. (I paid $2 for a doll so I could steal the jeans for Tammy World.) Then I decided to go back for one doll, and all my reserve began to crumble. Here's the lady that started it all.

  I just loved  all the colours and her outfit, and her cute face.

  Look at those chubby cheeks!

  Her hair is still nice, but the feather in her hat has seen better days.

  I just kept thinking how much I liked her, and would I regret not getting her? I also kept remembering a doll from a previous show that I didn't get, and how I wished I had. In looking back to find a picture of that doll in an older post, I found that she was THIS doll! Not even one like her, but. her The bent apron corner clinches that. This is her. She was the one that got away, and I caught her this time!

  She's quite old. I think she belonged to the dealer's mother. I might be remembering that wrong. They had tables full of travel dolls, from all over the world. They were trying to sell the collection. They were selling the dolls for very cheap prices. Some were worth much more than they were charging, but the wife said she didn't care. They just wanted to get rid of them.

 

She has stuffed felt arms, and they do move.

And her felt shoes come off!

  She's possibly a  Piemonte doll. Does anybody know? 

Well, that's it for this time. I'll show you what else I gave into in an upcoming post.  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #349: An Amazing Hand Made Gift! Pee Wee Herman

Yesterday I promised that today you would see one of my Christmas gifts. Here he is. It's Pee Wee Herman.

  What's so amazing about that, you say? Well the amazing thing is that my sister made this guy!

No kidding! She made him from scratch! It all started back in May, when I sent her this picture of a knitted Pee Wee doll.

I said, "Make me one.", because she can crochet. She says she doesn't knit, but whatever. My sister can do anything she tries to do, and is good at all of it. When we were kids she was always making me something. I still have most of the stuff she made for me. One thing I really wish I still had was a Barbie sized quilt sleeping bag thing that she made out of paper towels. It was a few layers of paper towels, with another layer or two masking taped around the edges, and the top layers were 'quilted' using markers. There were loads of squares, all with different pictures/decorations on them, to make it look like a quilt. It was one of my favourite things, and it disappeared over the years. Mom probably threw it away. 

  So, she got the idea to make me a cloth Pee Wee, because she doesn't think she can crochet that well either. That's okay. I like cloth dolls better anyway. She did it all in secret. I had no idea what she was making, although I did know the last couple of months that she was making me a Christmas present. Yes. She worked on it for months. She was constantly redoing various parts. It took her a while to find some of the fabrics. Things like that. She only finished a day or two before Christmas.

  She started out by drawing the pattern.

She tried a couple of face designs.

This is how he looked when she settled on a face and got it sewn together, but hadn't stuffed the head yet.

Then she stuffed him and finished drawing his face.

She made a mock up suit or two using random fabric she had.

And finally she made the actual suit.

I think she did a pretty great job on the whole thing. I would have been scared to death to draw and colour the face on after I had worked so hard putting the whole thing together. If you screw it up at that point, all that hard work was for nothing. But I guess the head at least has to be stuffed when you paint it to know where everything is going to lay when it's stuffed.

The suit fabric is perfect. She said she thought she was going to have to juts make it grey. At the last minute she walked into a Goodwill and spotted a pair of Levi's ladies capri pants. They were exactly what she needed.

She apologized for his bow tie 'only' being 'a clip on'.

She says the metal part is from an earring.

She sewed him a white shirt, and found some tiny buttons.

She used the corners of a real handkerchief  to make his hankie.

His shirt has snaps. The buttons are just for show.

  As they do with Ken doll clothes, his shirt is sleeveless, to make his coat slide on easier and the sleeves look less bulky.

  She even lined his coat!

And she bothered to put vents in his shirt!

  His pants have a real fly, that closes with a snap.

  Like the jacket fabric, she said she had no idea what she was going to make his shoes out of, when at the last minute she found the perfect thing. She thought she was going to have to make them out of felt.

She even made the little tassels!

She had to make him some socks from some cut down baby doll socks.

His hands have sewn in flingers.

He also has stitched in jointing. He's jointed at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, and knees. He can sit down.

He can bend at the wrists.

His elbows bend.

You can see the jointing below.

Gee. Pee Wee is more buff than you would think.

Pretty cool, huh? But she didn't stop there. Actually, she gave me two packages, and the one she gave me fist contained this:

Nice, I thought. Maybe Mr. World can wear the pajamas. I don't really see him in the pink robe though. And I'll have to find somebody else to wear the cute bunny slippers. They were my favourite part though!

  Then she had me open Pee Wee and all was explained.

She said she tried to find fabric with wienie dogs on it, like his pajamas, but she had to settle for dogs in general.    I didn't remember the wienie dog pajamas. 

Apparently it was from an episode of the Playhouse, where Pee Wee has a pajama party.

Notice the red piping on the collar and cuffs.

The robe has blanket stitching around the collar and pockets. 

She wasn't satisfied with the size of the print, but the colours are right.

  She also included a little gingerbread man on her gift tag. She said she was originally intending to put it in his pocket, so I did.

  He looks so warm and cozy.

  The bunny slippers are great. On the show he wore slippers that looked like houses, but he wore bunny slippers in "Pee Wee's Big Adventure".

 As hard as bunny slippers were, the houses might have been even harder.

  Pee Wee is 16 inches tall. To give you an idea of scale, here he is having a pajama party with Tammy World.

  I think she did an amazing on on him, and I appreciate it so much. I think she thinks I don't think much of him, but I do. And everybody else thought he was really something too.

  Catch up starts tomorrow, so be prepared to be bombarded with posts. I didn't want to do more than one post today, because I didn't want Pee Wee to get lost in the shuffle. He's too special for that.