Doll-A-Day 2023 #345: Norweigian Doll by Rønnaug Petterssen

   Today's doll is one I got at a doll show way back a year or two ago. I think I showed you the shelf she was on, when it was full of dolls, and after I had shopped it. In any case, she's here now.

  She is a souvenir type doll, made in Norway.

She has a tag inside her dress that says 'Kimports' too.

  I found another doll online, that looks very similar and is also a Kimport doll from Norway. That doll is described as "a Rønnaug Petterssen doll, the version known as flat faced with needle sculpted facial features".

She has a lot of hair in her face. I need to tidy her hair. It's mohair. I'm not going to try to comb it!

That doll was 7 inches tall, about the same as this one. They're asking $309! Not  that they will actually get $309, but, still!

  Rønnaug Petterssen was the doll artist. I found a Facebook page dedicated to her, and there was a picture of some ladies at a doll show with a table full of her dolls, and a doll just like my girl was on the table! So I at least can say she's pretty certainly by Rønnaug Petterssen. 

The first doll I saw had the same legs and shoes as my girl, with the little metal buckles on her shoes. 

And very similar tiny handmade lace.

Ignore my very dry finger.

She has a lot of gold trim on her dress and her hat too.

  

The first doll was supposedly from the 1930's. If that's true, I would say my doll is too.

  It's nice to know the maker of this doll, and some other details. But I don't want to sell her. I love this kind of doll. Tomorrow we'll see another doll I'm very fond of.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #254: Hungarian Doll...Probably

   Today's doll, also from one of the recent doll shows, is this pretty little miss.

I got her from my friend Casey's table, for only $1! She needs her face cleaned, but otherwise she's perfect.

She has such beautiful embroidery and a cute face. She reminds me of the much larger Hungarian doll I have, that you may have seen HERE. This doll is much smaller, at only 8 or 9 inches tall.

  Her face is sort of a crepe like material, but her arms are sort of a thick stockingette, like the Hungarian Matyo dolls I showed you HERE. 

Since those are all Hungarian, I'm going to guess this girl is Hungarian too.

She's holding a wire, which I'm guessing used to have flowers on it.

Her outfit is beautiful, with loads of flowers embroidered all over.

  From the back you can see how pleated her dress is.

She has a sip, and cotton bloomers.

Her little shoes have ribbon rosettes on the front.

  They're backless, like the shoes on the first doll I mentioned.

The whole upper part of her dress is embroidered, along with her apron.

  

The neck of her dress has some delicate lace. She's wearing a tiny necklace. I don't know what her hair is made if, but it feels like human hair.

Even the back of her dress is embroidered. and look at that beautiful lace. 

The apron again.

Her hat has embroidery all over it.

  I would love to clean her face, but I'm afraid to. It's all she would need really, to be perfect again, besides the easy job of replacing the flower in her hand. Still, she'll look nice next to the other dolls I mentioned. If anybody know exactly what kind of doll she is, let me know in the comments.

  See you again tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #93: Big Russian Girl

   The other day we saw a doll I got at my ex-favourite Goodwill. Today we're looking at one I didn't buy. Not because I didn't like her, but because she was more than I wanted to spend, and also, because she was big, and I can't get any more big dolls right now. Here she is.

Pretty, isn't she? Look at her face. It's very colourful.

  From the look of the plastic she's made of, and those big plastic eyelashes, I would say she's a Russian doll. I have a few Russian dolls, and they are made of this somewhat cheap looking plastic, and have the huge plastic eyelashes. (You can see two of them, HERE and HERE.) They also have very glowy complexions, and cute faces, and that's what makes them so appealing. 

  From additional research I would say this doll may be a doll made at the Leningrushka factory in Leningrad, possibly in the 1970's. She looks very much like she could be related to this doll, made in Leningrushka in the 70's. If you want to read about the history of the factory, and see more of their dolls, there is a good page for that HERE.

  I looked for some markings on her, and all I could find was a strange thing on the bottom of her shoe.

I can't tell what it is.

This girl has very blushy cheeks and sleep eyes.

  She was about 20 inches tall.

She had a nice outfit with orange shoes. You can see them a little better here. Ken was taking the pictures for me and not being very patient about it!

She was wearing thigh high stockings and undies.

Her shirt was a separate piece from her skirt. She also had a cool hat.

  While I was looking for markings on her I noticed that her clothes are sewn to each other, (The vest was sewn to the shirt, etc.), making it impossible to look at her back for marks. I couldn't see any marks, but I did find that she has a 'mama box' or 'crier' in her back!

This was as high as I could raise her shirt because of her clothing being sewn together.

   That's weird. She's not meant to be a baby. But I couldn't find anything anywhere on her that would have activated any other talking mechanism. What if she speaks Russian?! That would be interesting. She doesn't make any sound at all though, even when turned upside down, and back, which is what usually activates a crier.

She was in such perfect condition. Besides her and the doll I showed you yesterday, there were several other souvenir dolls, and dolls representing countries. Somebody must have collected them, and either died, or donated their collection.

  So, wish I could have gotten her, but the pictures will have to do. **************Okay. Confession. I wrote this that night, and Saturday I went back and I bought her. Only now she only has one shoe! There was a guy working in the aisle, stocking, and I said that the doll had both shoes a few days ago, and now she only has one. Had he happened to see it anywhere? He said, "I probably threw it away. If something's in the floor, I guarantee you it got thrown away." (Kind of like my mom always did!) I thought, "Well, then you're an idiot! Why wouldn't you try to find where it goes?! Take a glance around, at least." His advice was stupid too: Get some orange paint! Yeah. Okay. You're hilarious.

  See you tomorrow for another doll.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #92: A Beautiful Souvenir Doll and Happy Easter!

  For those of you who celebrate Easter, I hope you're enjoying the day. As for Tammy World, she thought she was going to have to do Easter in a borrowed Penny Brite shirt and a pair of leggings I (badly) made from a pair of Dollar Tree socks. 

That's all she's had here at Emma's, except for her veggiesaurus shirt and black pants, and the nightgown I got on a Skipper from Goodwill.

  I can barely get Ken to find my clothes at the house, (and only this week got my short sleeved shirts from the house), let alone find Tammy's clothes! Clothes in Tammy's size are hard to find, especially since she's now using the super skinny, but articulated, Hogwarts Heroes Hermione body. So I was forced to get a pair of socks from Dollar Tree and try to turn them into leggings. There are vague intentions to make a sweater too. But when this was deemed not good enough for Easter, I dug through some clothes that came from the house in some doll stuff, and sorted out a Penny Brite shirt, and a skirt I thought would fit Tammy. She's me as a kid, so she doesn't like having to wear a skirt, but beggars can't be choosers. I also had to buy her some new hair elastics while I was at Dollar Tree. Hers popped, and her hair was looking a mess. I had saved some elastics from a doll I opened, but I don't know where I put them now. I have plenty at home, but if I send Ken to root through my desk drawer, he will never get it closed again. There's a lot of stuff in there, and it's fit together like a puzzle. He'd never get it put back together. So anyway, she looks a lot better now.

She still only has her tennis shoes, so she's in her socks, (At least they've been washed recently!), but she did want to wish you all a happy Easter.

  My autofocus didn't want to focus on both Tammy's face, and her message, so you get one or the other, I'm afraid!

  We are going to have Ivy with us, so we will enjoy being with her. She has to leave this evening, as she has to be at work in Indiana tomorrow. So, short visit, but better than nothing. I spent part of yesterday making about three dozen curried eggs, which took ages to peel. I spent the time finishing watching "M", which I started rewatching weeks ago. I also photographed some dolls when I finished. We'll see them soon. But today's doll is this lady I found at a Goodwill.

She a souvenir type doll in a native folk costume of some sort.

  It used to be my favourite Goodwill, but it hasn't been lately. I did get excited to find this doll though. She's the larger version of the dolls I love that Ivy and I have, that I posted about HERE and HERE. In fact, she has the same face, and the exact same boots as my smaller doll, and her skirt is made of the exact same fabric as my doll's skirt!

New doll...

...small doll. The bigger one could be her mom!

New doll...

...small doll!

New doll...

...small doll! Trust me. It's the same fabric.

The new doll is a lot taller than the one I've had for a while. My small girl is about 6 inches tall, while the new lady is about 12 inches tall if you include her hat.

  And speaking of hats, the new lady has quite an elaborate one.

Beads on top, and beads in front.

Lots of ribbon.

A huge ribbon on the back of the hat, that reaches to her waist.

Lots of beads.

Ribbon in the back.

The beads in front are strung and woven through the lace trim.

Her whole outfit is pretty extravagant.

Lots of fringey stuff.

 

The fringes on her crossed shawl thingy are various colours.

A bead in her bodice.

Big puffy sleeves. And look at the lace,

  I don't know what country her clothes represent. My world traveling friend Helga may be able to help with this one. In trying to figure it out I think she may be...Hungarian? The red boots also suggest Poland or Ukraine.

She is wearing a beautiful apron too.

   She has a necklace, but it only goes part of the way around her neck.

   

Her face is pressed over some sort of form, and obviously hand painted.

  I'm not sure what her hair is made of. Maybe silk thread?

  One difference between her and her smaller counterpart is, the small doll has mitten hands, while this lady has individual fingers.

Her nails have even been painted on.

  I didn't even check to see if her arms bend. (I have a couple of  Hungarian dolls that are made similarly, and their arms do bend.) I know the legs of these dolls are never jointed or bendable.

  I'm just really pleased to have found her. She was marked $3.99, which isn't bad. I'm cheap though, so I was pleased to find out she was half price! So I paid $2 for her, and I think I got a deal.

  Tomorrow we'll see another doll I found the same day, that I didn't bring back with me, but I wish I could have.