My Dolls

Lori at Faerie Window is hosting a My Dolls show and tell today. Dolls have always been treasured by my Granny, Mum and I. Dolls in all shapes and forms.

Granny especially adored dolls. She left her secure home in London on the onset of WW11 and came to New Zealand as the new wife of my Granddad who was an Engineer for the Merchant Navy. He left her with his family and promptly went off to sea for some years!

During this time Great Granny, who still lived in London, sent Granny a beautiful French Fashion doll called Felicity. Felicity travelled to New Zealand by ship during the war and her voyage took many months.

Felicity was Granny's most prized and treasured possession. Felicity had many costume changes over the years, all designed and hand stitched by Granny.

Granny passed away last year and Felicity now lives with Mum. Here she is, she has real human hair of a beautiful auburn colour and she is wearing the last costume Granny had made her.


Granny also dressed miniature period costume dolls. Each costume was carefully researched and hand stitched. I now have these dolls. Here they are in a cabinet in my previous home.

The top shelf has Henry the VIII and his 6 wives, his two daughters Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth the 1st.

The middle shelf is period costumes through the ages and the bottom shelf is traditional costumes from countries around the world.

I had them arranged in the cabinet just as they were in Granny's home. It was one of my greatest pleasures as a little girl to be allowed to open the cabinet and carefully look at each of the dolls.


I have Granny's glory box and in it were two of the undressed dolls she used, still in there packets.


You can imagine as a little girl any new dolls I was given for Christmas or a birthday would come with the most glorious of wardrobes.

Here is my doll Tina, she needs to go to dolly's hospital for a new eye! Tina came with this incredible fashion wardrobe, all stitched and knitted by Granny. She even has handmade leather shoes and a bag.


This was my Sindy dolls wardrobe. Mum and Granny collaborated one Christmas with Granny sewing her clothes and Mum crocheting and knitting her clothes.

I bet you can't guess what era I had Sindy in!!!


I was delighted when I found these two little baby doll dresses in a thrift shop. They are smocked and hand embroidered and were .50c each!


This baby doll is about 50 year old. She belongs to Babe's Aunty Eileen. The baby doll lives with us now, I used her a lot for shop displays, she is currently wearing a vintage baby nightgown.


Granny, Mum and I love paper dolls. I found this untouched book of Lettie Lane Paper Dolls on Trade Me and just had to have it.


Some years ago I found this book of Betty Bonnet Paper Dolls in an Antique Shop. I bought it and gave it to Granny for Christmas. I now have it back!


Last winter Mum lived with us while looking for a house to buy nearby. Inspired by the Paper Doll Dress swaps we did a side ways swap of our own with Karen and Catieann.

This is the dress I made Catieann,


and this one for Karen.


This led to nights of us churning out garlands of paper doll dresses for the shop. They sold really well!


We got more and more elaborate with our ruffles and embellishments!



So carried away by paper doll dresses was I, that I made this dress for the Bloglandia Ball!



One of my most challenging swaps was the Art Doll swap. I joined it without knowing what an Art Doll was!!! Jerusalem was my partner and I had read on her blog that she loved the Princess and the Pea story.

Here is the Princess and Pea I created for Jerusalem. The layers of the dress are meant to represent the mattresses and at the bottom of the dress is a little green gem to represent the pea! I loved how it turned out and could hardly bare to part with it. But I did!


So there you have it,the doll history of our family.

Thankfully my Princess loves dolls as much as we do. She has a vast collection of Barbies and paper dolls.

Thanks so much Lori for hosting this great show and tell. I am off to visit the other dolls in Blogland.