My doll cabinet - bottom shelf part 1

Here are the bottom shelf residents in my doll display cabinet. Quite a mixed collection.

On the left is my Canadian Indian boy. My father's sister lived in Canada for the latter half of her life, and when I was three or four she sent my sister and I Canadian Dolls for Christmas. It was my first introduction to indigenous peoples of another country (apart from my own), and especially confusing in that the dolls were introduced to us as 'Indian' when India was in a different continent from the Americas. However this in fact was a great way of introducing world exploration history and terminology to two curious little girls. My sister got a squaw doll all dressed up in a lovely fur coat and I seem to remember with a papoose, I got the boy with plaits (braids in the USA). When later we started reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder 'Little house' books, those dolls certainly helped us to visualise the peoples she met on her journeys.

We weren't allowed to use the dolls in everyday play, nor did we ever take their clothes off as little children normally do, as it was explained that they were dolls for display rather than play. But we did hold them quite a lot over the years. Despite this, he is in remarkably good condition, not spoiled at all, though his leather clothes are a little faded, as I discovered when I lifted the flap of his top.

Front view of my Canadian/American Indian boy

Back view, showing the quiver for his arrows
(no arrows though - he came without them)

I cannot find any markings on his visible skin to tell me what make of doll he is, however on Janiesdolls.com I've found this article about a very similar doll (different outfit and hands) which is called a Ginny doll from the Far Away Land series. Sadly mine does not have a box or an identification tag and I wouldn't part with him anyway, but it would be nice to confirm when dolls dressed like him were made, if he is indeed a Ginny. He has jointed arms and head, but his legs don't move, so he stands firmly upright.

In front of my Canadian/American Indian boy is a little bead and pipe cleaner doll dressed in blue. She came from a festival stall and I'm pretty sure is based on the Jean Greenhowe doll on the see-saw in Making Miniature Toys & Dolls, a book I was given when I was seventeen. I didn't make her, but did make similar dolls at one stage, though actually before I got that book, so must have borrowed library books for instructions to make my first pipe cleaner dolls. Such dolls are quite satisfying to make, as they are posable, and it was in making them that I developed skills some of which I later used when making my jointed hand carved dolls, around the time I was given that book.

Little Bead and Pipecleaner girl

My doll display cabinet

With my Westville Greenleaf half-complete dollshouse currently in storage because we are trying to sell our house, I'm in the category of frustrated miniaturist - I can't do much in the way of miniature projects because most of my tools and materials are with the house, and we're trying to keep the human size house tidy for viewings. There are a few things we can do to complete the accessories in my daughter's toy and cake shop, but I can't do anything major.

So I'm showing you my collection of mini dolls and curiosities instead.

Some years ago I realised I needed the equivalent of a printers tray in order to display some of my mini treasures, but a printers tray would not hold many of the dolls because mostly the compartments for the old type letters are too small for miniature dolls. So I kept my eyes peeled around antique and charity shops, and managed to find a little cabinet (probably an old medicine cupboard). It had already been painted to look 'distressed' and has a stencil on the glass in the door. I'm not that keen on the paintwork, I was tempted to strip it down and either repaint or varnish it, but in the interests at the time of needing to give the dolls a home because they were packed in boxes, I decided that project would have to wait. The cabinet was mounted on the bedroom wall, and there it has hung ever since (apart from when we redecorated the room a couple of years ago).

It has three shelves and the dolls are arranged on these shelves. I'm going to concentrate on the residents of one shelf at a time over the next few postings. For the time being all you can see is the outside of the cabinet with a glimpse of the dolls as I realised on taking photos this evening that it will be better to do the photography during the day without needing the flash or having to worry about lamp shadows. My hand carved wooden dolls which featured in the previous post sit on the top shelf surrounded by various friends, but I think I shall start with the bottom shelf.

Handmade dolls, Heidi Ott dolls and smocking

When I was a teenager I was inspired by some tiny peg jointed dolls in a Museum in the town where my aunt still lives. Even though I didn't have the tools or the skills to make really good dolls, I started experimenting with twigs, small pieces of roughly carved wood, and pins. Eventually I succeeded in making a 1/12th scale wooden jointed doll that somehow satisfied me.

I can't recall how I managed to bore the holes through the main body of the doll for the arms and legs, it may have been with a hand drill (I wasn't brave enough to use an electric drill), but I know my woodcarving tools were pressed into service for the shaping of the bodies, and and glue for the feet. The joints were fixed with steel pins and solder so the doll is definitely not of a safe quality for child play (I did use flux for the solder, but cannot vouch for the joints), and I painted her carefully with gloss paint (which I wouldn't use now, as it gives an unnatural shine). But these were the best materials I had to hand at the time.

I was obsessed with creating hair that looked more natural than the traditional painted topknot, so painstakingly stitched different cotton threads into a small piece of material which I glued to her head. As you can see from the photo I even used different colours in her hair to make it more realistic. Then I had great fun making her white bloomers and miniature smocked dress, with the tiniest print material I could find. I was really proud of this dress, and more than 24 years later I'm still pleased with my teenage efforts.


I then made this little doll a younger brother. He has rather a spiky hairstyle, as I didn't want to glue his hair flatter, so he has the appearance of a rather cheeky, naughty little boy. I also sewed his clothes.
Their faces aren't very good - I was still a beginner at that time in painting detail, and some paint has flaked off the side of the girl's face. But they look happy.

These two dolls were my best efforts - although they gained parents and a baby sibling, none of those dolls were anything like as good as these two: the others were rather clunky in style and the joints didn't hold up so well, so I threw them away not so long ago, as they didn't stand the test of time.

About 2 1/2 years ago my elder daughter acquired three Heidi Ott dolls for her dollshouse which we built from a kit. I made clothes for all these dolls, as they had none. The boy wears a knitted sleeveless top over his shirt, and a pair of trousers, all of which I made, and the girl wears a smocked dress. I actually referred to the earlier smocked dress I had created all those years ago to remind myself of what looked effective, and of course wanted to improve as much as possible. All these clothes (even on the wooden dolls) are easy to remove or put on again - the earlier outfits have beads and loops for fastenings, the newer dress has miniature buttons with button holes stitched with blanket stitch. The third Heidi Ott doll is an adult - Mrs Harvey, but more about her in the future.



It is interesting to compare the newer dolls and clothes with the handmade dolls. I'm proud of the fact that I got the scale about right and that my wooden dolls have a unique character and charm of their own, even though they are very rough, and definitely cannot stand up to a child playing with them. I like the fine detail in the faces and hands of the Heidi Ott dolls, and their hair, but rather wish that they didn't look so hunched around the shoulder area with their new clothes on. Their bodies are fabric covered wire armature, and the padding is rather too much for their clothes to hang naturally off their shoulders. So the wooden dolls will go back in the doll display cabinet, whilst the Heidi Ott dolls will return to Harveys toy and cake shop (which I'll blog about soon) before my daughter discovers they have been involved in a photo shoot.