Our Balcony on Our 1888 Italianate House

We love our 1888 Italianate house. It appears to be a little grand, and yet minuscule as far as grand styled houses go. Our house is actually small with only 2,000 square feet. It is a cottage, but because of the Italianate design, it is tall. We have 11 foot ceilings in the downstairs and 10 foot ceilings in the upstairs. It is notable in historic Oregon City, Oregon, as The Judge Cross House. It is on a busy street, for a small town, yet we never experience traffic noise inside, due to our amazing indoor storm windows that are virtually unseen by the naked eye. At night, outside, it is quiet. 

Here on my balcony I am finally beginning to build a little garden. I have a few flowers begun and today I had to transplant my beautiful Madame Cecille Brüner rose vine to where you barely see it there between the two windows. She was becoming too unwieldy in the front yard and could have grabbed at anyone walking up our steps. I hope she makes it here. If she does not, I will buy another.... But today was a tough one for me to dig and dig and pull and tug. In the foreground there is a stand holding lovely hanging flowers. I am getting there!

Putting the rose vine on an arbor was not an option for this yard. For years I have had to keep the vine trimmed, yet it still grew rapidly and had to be tied back. Our old house was moved to this site in the 1920's. It took dynamite to get a spot for the house, as this is a basalt mountain. When Oregon City was getting its first high school back in the '20's, they chose the land where our house was and so it was moved then.

Italianate houses have those quoins you see there on the corners of the house. The word quoin is pronounced coin.

The door you see in the evening light is access to the balcony, and this happens to be my art room. This is actually one of the three bedrooms upstairs, but has not been anyone's bedroom in perhaps 50 years. Previous owners also used it for a sewing room and a television viewing room. It is our television viewing room as well as my art room, which I thoroughly enjoy. Our living room and downstairs is too pretty to ruin with a TV!

Mehitabel Hodges ~ 18th. Century Wooden Doll

In the late 1990's I spotted a magazine in an antiques shop with this doll on the cover and my heart was captured. The article was by the late John Darcy Noble about Mehitabel Hodges known as the "Salem Doll".

In the words of Mr. Noble:

"Her story is perhaps a saga, which reads like a detective yarn from the shattering of her reputation and her shameful retirement to the appearance of her champions on both sides of the Atlantic. Let us look first at her story as it appeared in print in the 1940's. A Captain Gamaliel Hodges of Salem, Massachusetts, set sail for China in 1715. In France he bought a doll for his daughter, Mehitabel, elaborately dressed in the fashion of the day. It was said that Captain Hodges did not return to Salem until 1724.

The doll, we were told, was treasured by subsequent generations of Hodges girls, who named it Mehitabel after its first owner. All this information is from family oral history, which seems to have been written down for the first time in the 1890's, when the doll was exhibited for charity."

And so the story goes.  To finish reading it, please find the book Selected Writings of John Darcy Noble. Favorite Articles From Dolls Magazine: 1982-1995

But from my heart it is key that this doll was the first glass-eyed wooden I ever laid eyes on and it was she who inspired me to sculpt my doll Tess. Of course, my sculpting is primitive and immature to say the least; nonetheless, Tess was born and became one of my signature creations. I made a plaster mold of my first one and from there pour liquid maché into the mold to make more of the same doll. I never knew how I would ever make a wooden doll. 

I finally learned how woodens were made and I left it at that, for my passion was never that strong to reproduce an exact replica.  The artist in me is happy to do my own interpretation.

I still love Mehitabel Hodges. 

My Dolls at The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Shop

When I was approached by Monticello's buyer to place some of my dolls there for sale, my heart filled with joy and pride. Monticello is a magical place. Here are some of my Bella dolls and my Emma dolls that have traveled off to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia to be sold at the shop. You will want to put into the search space the word Doll, and dolls for sale there will suddenly appear. My Emma dolls will show up right away. They do not yet offer online the Bella dolls, (at their behest, each with human hair). No names of artists are mentioned. But they do say they are from Oregon, which is where I live and make my dolls.

I will no longer be making Emma's or Bella's for sale from my studio, for a while. If one wishes to own one of these models, please go to Monticello's shop.

THANK YOU MONTICELLO!

Polly Ann, A 1795 Stump Doll Reproduction ~ SOLD

Polly Ann is a stump doll like one from 1795 that was owned by the Wylie family of Connecticut. I believe that doll now resides in Rhode Island.

My Polly Ann was created for a client and is therefore SOLD. She is dressed entirely in antique silks and laces. I have altered aspects of the original design in using embroidery for her face, rather than ink, and in adding legs to her whereas the original has no legs.

Stump dolls are not named as such due to coming from a tree, but because they are stumpy in bodily design.

Little Gabby

Little Gabby is a dear, small doll that I enjoyed making. She is sold, but she wants to be seen here. Her beautiful robin's egg blue, AKA turquoise, velvet skirt is made from very old, wonderfully vintage velvet. I enjoyed making her funny little flat limbs with stitched fingers. Gabby has human hair, which I love.

Paige, A Sweet Cloth Doll

My Paige sold right away, but I wanted to share her here, because I had such pleasure creating her. I love her wee poem on her little, white Valentine heart, and I love her human hair.

I frequent estate sales whenever nice old things are shown in the photos on estate finder. A couple years ago I found at one of the sales a book of poems all doll related.

Here is Paige's little poem that I deliberately wrote onto the heart in an almost horror vacui style, which I love, for it wastes no space and that is how many olden days people utilized all of their precious paper.

Doll was lost

Outdoors at night;

She saw the moon,

Enormous bright,

A dewdrop fell

Upon her nose.

A beetle ran

Across her toes.

Miriam G. Potter

Golden book of Little Verses

Definition of horror vacuo:

horror vacui |ˈvakyəˌwī|noun [ in sing. ]a fear or dislike of leaving empty spaces, esp. in an artistic composition.ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: modern Latin, literally ‘horror of a vacuum.’

Loving Olde ~ Queen Anne Dolls on Etsy

Loving Olde is the name of the Etsy store of a friend of mine wherein she hand-sculpts darling dolls in papier mache and then clothes them entirely in beautiful vintage whites. Most of her fabrics come from France. Barb Mabry is her name and she hand-stitches every little detail.

Please visit to see what sweet little beauties Barb has listed now:

                                                             Loving Olde


Here is a doll, Prudence, that I recently bought from Barb. I absolutely love this little work of art.

Emma Reborn an Angel

Remember Emma from a while back? Well, she is now for sale on my Dolls and Fancywork Shoppe, as an angel. If  interested, please go see her along with all of my new offerings as of today!

Thank you!

Goody Fae and Her Familiar, Feazel, & I, say to all, Happy New Year!

I failed to write Goody Fae on this picture. Although Goody Fae runs with the fairies, she asked me to clarify. I have promised her that any further pictures of her will have the correct title. Fairies don't have "familiars" you know. In some circles fairies are familiars!

Peggy Flavin's Dolls on Christmas Morning

Peggy Flavin has shared with us again, her beautiful Kathy Patterson Dolls.

Here is what is said by

Peggy:

CHRISTMAS MORNING !

The little Wooden Sisters were not disappointed! 

They found their stockings sitting on handsome Mr. Clock , with his Christmas headdress of princess pine and dancing paper children. 

 Yes! Even little wooden dolls, can expect a Christmas surprise....all things are possible when you apply a little imagination!  

Life is a mystery, forever explored....... as is faith....

                                      Oh, Sister! Our stockings are full of special things!!

                                               Elena! Quick , pass them down to me! 

Eugenia, this is a great story..."Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house"!
Elena, I got a new dollie! 

Peggy Flavin's Dolls Again ~ Wishing you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Please go to Peggy Flavin's Blog, Dolls In The Neatest Manner to read all about her Kathy Patterson made wooden, 18th. century dolls as they delightfully decorate for Christmas. I am only providing the images, but it is so much more charming when you read Peggy's words for the dolls. Enjoy and indeed, have a very Merry Christmas!

My Style

I have returned to the blog design created for me by wonderful Karen Valentine the first time. She designed my second one that I recently used, but alas, I missed the original one and asked Karen to restore it.

I am purely into my concept of beauty which encompasses more than strictly one time period in one specific country.

I am back to my castles and imaginary world!

To get the full feel of this design, if you cannot see the sides very well, open your screen by dragging from the right corner and there you will see my favorite aspect of this design.

And with that, I wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Bella ~ Extreme Queen Anne

Here is my model, Bella, done up in a very broad Queen Anne styled skirt. I believe this could be a bit extreme, since it seems like a table top. Bella has beautiful natural blonde human hair. She is permanently affixed to her fancy stand. She is a small doll, being 9 inches tall. Her stand is 1 & 1/2 inches tall. 

Milliner's Model Emma with Cloth Limbs

When I make this milliner's model that I call Emma, she invariably has poured, liquid maché limbs, but with this one, I experimented and made her arms and legs from cloth. She turned out a little shorter than the other Emma dolls.

This old dress has been on one of my other Emma dolls, but for some reason, people are not enamored of the fancy paper embellishments. And so, soon I will have this Emma in this dress for sale at a lower price than my other Emma's. Stay tuned for my next doll announcement. One-of-these-days....

Lulu

Lulu is 26 inches long, and is the newest edition to my next bevy of dolls that will be posted for sale before long.

I so enjoyed making this doll as well as her "vintage" flower, which is actually one that I made of vintage fabric.

Enjoy!

Playing with Kathy Patterson Dolls From Peggy Flavin

I so love the dolls of many of my doll making friends. Kathy Patterson is my dear friend and maker of the most beautiful Queen Anne woodens of the 1700's and even earlier on occasion.

Peggy Flavin is a lover of these dolls who happens to own some of them. I asked permission of Peggy to share her pictures from her blog Dolls In The Neatest Manner. You will want to go there to read what she says and of course, you will have to explore her blog more closely to get all of this wonderful story down right.

I have only beautiful and delightful pictures of hers in which to enchant you completely!

ENJOY!