Harriet's new violin

My elder daughter is a young violinist, and recently did very well in her Grade 4 violin and Grade 1 piano examinations. Months ago she told me that she wanted her Gotz doll Harriet to have a violin, but Gotz do not have such an accessory for their dolls. I scoured the web, and of course found that American Girl dolls have violins and music stands, but the cost to ship from the USA was just too much. Eventually I found an equivalent violin on ebay from a US seller, who was also able to sell me a My Twinn doll music stand. The music stand is able to extend higher than Harriet needs, as My Twinn is about 3 inches taller than Gotz. It also came with some miniature sheet music.

Harriet, her violin, stand and the violin case

I bought these items months ago so they were put away. When my daughter's examination results came through earlier this week, I presented her with the violin and music stand. She was delighted and became absorbed with getting Harriet to hold the violin just right. She discovered that the moving turn-key for the music box in the violin resulted in the violin suddenly falling out of Harriet's arms as it caught on her clothes, but as it is a music box sound rather than a violin sound, it isn't very authentic anyway. I've discovered an Australian Girl Doll photo on Flickr with an audio file uploaded that plays violin sounding music, see http://www.flickr.com/photos/37638544@N07/3614916075/ which is much better.

Harriet is wearing a summery set from the 2009 Gotz catalogue, and the crocs / ducs came from the USA via ebay.