Doll Mum's blog: Gotz dolls

Showing posts with label Gotz dolls. Show all posts

Sunday, 14 January 2018

Pram day

Three of us have been planning pram day since before the Chat 'n Snap - Alice H asked for some help and advice with her pram (a Red) which she had purchased from someone in the USA and I suggested she some to visit us, then we invited Jane S and Teddy who were interested to see the pram work in action and it became doll and pram day.

Alice's pram had been delivered to her via a friend with the hood detached from the body of the pram and with some loose stitching on the hood, so the inner lining was coming off the frame. Alice wasn't sure how to attach it. Thankfully all the nuts and bolts were present and the pram was in very good condition, with only a few minor scrapes to the paintwork. These could be touched up using a fine paint brush, or left alone. We inspected the hood to see if it was aligned correctly, it was a bit stiff to make the hood clip up so my husband gently but firmly manipulated the hood wires a little so the hood fabric wouldn't catch on the inside of the straps which hold the hood up. I stitched the lining back in place then my husband fitted the hood back onto the chassis and Alice's pram was complete once more. This happened while we talked non stop about the various dolls which Teddy, Jane and Alice had brought with them.

Alice's reassembled 'Red' pram, with a miniature Baby Born resting on the cushions

Both Teddy and I have Heather Maciak's wonderful Jenny and Lexie 8 inch dolls (and I have Annie and Emily as well) so he had brought his Jenny and Lexie as well as his two 7 inch Helen Kish dolls (Riley and Tulah). He also brought a Sasha girl and boy. I brought out my four Maciak dolls plus the three Patsi dolls by Heidi Pluszcok.

Alice brought her new 10 inch Boneka doll Valetta (similar to the Little Darling dolls) which she had redressed. At one point during pram day this little girl tried on the sundress I had made for 8.5 inch Annie and it fitted her fine.

Jane brought along three Sasha dolls, the long haired blond had frizzy hair ends. She had been treating the lovely two tone blond hair with conditioner and argon oil but the ends were dry. Teddy asked for a spray bottle with water in it, the iron and ironing board and proceeded to demonstrate the technique for improving dry frizzy nylon hair. He combed out a section of hair flat onto the ironing board, sprayed it with water then ironed it firmly with the iron on a nylon setting. It was amazing what a difference this made as he slowly worked through all the hair on her head. Jane was delighted.

Combing out some hair before spraying it with water

Ironing the hair!

We cleared the dining room table for lunch and plenty more doll talk. Some of our 19.5 inch Gotz dolls came downstairs to join Louisa and Florence who were hosting the visitors.

L-R: Teddy's new boy, Teddy's girl, Claire with her newly ironed hair, Florence in her 2017 Sasha Festival outfit and Jane's boy in his new striped sweater

Toddler Louisa with her new bobbed haired friend Lucy (Jane's girl)

L-R: Harriet in her purple skating outfit, Jayne in the background, Louisa and Lucy

After lunch we went upstairs to the doll/sewing room as Jane was keen to see Belle and Matilda, the Australian Girl dolls and decided they were a nice combination of cuddly and attractive to look at (the lower half of their torsos are cloth, while the top part is vinyl which means they can wear summer clothes without showing the cloth bodies). Mrs Harvey's toy and cake shop was shown off, the other Sasha dolls who hadn't already come downstairs to greet the visitors were admired as was the modified Our Generation doll kitchen and the Gotz Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley dolls. Then we looked at my unfinished Greenleaf dolls house, my doll cabinet, Susie (Palitoy), Anna (Gotz), Jakob (Kids n Kats) and Betsy (Schoenhut) as well as the teddy bears Bruin and Panda with Poodle.

Downstairs I held a doll photo session of the visiting dolls along with their host dolls, my pram and Alice's pram, which temporarily held one of our miniature Baby Born dolls.

L-R: Teddy's blond Kish (Riley), my Emily, Teddy's Lexie, my Lexie, Alice's new Boneka doll Valetta, my Jenny, Teddy's Jenny, my Annie, Teddy's blond Kish (Tulah)

My Lexie and Jenny with Valetta, the Boneka girl

Jenny, Jenny, Annie and Tulah (Kish)

Riley (Kish), Emily, Lexie and Lexie

L-R: Jane's boy, Teddy's boy, Louisa, Lucy, Teddy's girl, Florence, Claire with her newly ironed hair

Teddy's girl, Florence and Claire

Jane's boy, Teddy's boy, Louisa, Lucy and Teddy's girl

Teddy's boy, Louisa, Lucy, Teddy's girl and Florence

Our full size pram chassis holding our little street organ also became part of pram day when my husband played some music on the organ for Alice, Jane and Teddy.

While we continued to talk dolls everyone reluctantly packed their dolls and Alice's pram away for their journeys home.

We had fun hosting pram day.

Sunday, 21 February 2016

Welcome party

There was a party going on

Music was provided by the band with Laura singing the vocals

Laura was wearing a dramatic red velvet cloak as she sang and danced

Edmund had joined the band with a guitar though was in danger of being deafened by Trendon Elliott's trumpet!

The flute, guitars, drums and backing singers were in full swing

The backing singers Matroshka, Jayne and Harriet were dancing and moving their arms in time as they sang while Matilda and Belle danced on the balcony and Nicholas James played the guitar

Clemence the bear fancied himself a singer too and held the microphone stand for Laura

Peter the drummer and Matroshka the singing dancer

Matilda and Belle were loving the music

Trendon Elliott was playing the trumpet, Anna the flute and Samantha the guitar

Reuben, Miranda, Florence and the babies Amy, Mabel and Leo were loving Laura's singing as they danced along to the music

The music drew two newcomers into the room - they were astonished by the welcome to their new home

Reuben rushed over to greet them "Melanie, Nina, at last you've come" he yelled in delight to see his new sisters

"Welcome home" cried Reuben as he hugged his new sister Melanie while Miranda greeted baby Nina

"Hello Melanie and Nina, we've been looking forward to meeting you" exclaimed Florence and Miranda as baby Amy peeped between their legs to see Nina

The Sasha and Gregor family gathered round Melanie and Nina to welcome them, there was a lot of excited chatting

soon they were all partying together as the band started playing again to welcome their new sisters to the family

Melanie, Reuben and baby Nina (with Nina's basket)

Melanie and Nina my two new Trendon Sasha dolls arrived at the end of January via Susanna Lewis's site. They both came with their complete original outfits and boxes, and Nina has her basket. They are both minty, in fact Melanie still has the new vinyl smell and Nina, who was a shop display doll until she went to the same private collection as Melanie also has a faint new vinyl smell and her basket is perfect. Melanie is the 1983 Cora Flower dress and Nina is Little Flower. Reuben, who is a later Caleb is slightly shorter than Melanie (though it may be her hair) - he doesn't seem to mind though as he is delighted to have two new sisters. The elder sister of my childhood playmate Reuben was called Melanie and another Sunday school playmate I had at the Cathedral was also called Melanie. Nina is named for two Nina's - one was the mum of three neighbouring children whom I knew all my childhood and the other is a current friend.

My daughter was playing music from Queen while we set up and photographed this story, including Bohemian Rhapsody, We are the Champions. Somebody to Love, Another One Bites the Dust, I Want to Break Free and We Will Rock You.

I've had so little time for the dolls in recent weeks so it was fun to carve out some time with my younger daughter today to play dolls again together.

Saturday, 23 May 2015

Sasha Celebration - part 3

Restringing demonstration part 1 - the Gotz doll restring

Brigitte's first restring at the Sasha Celebration weekend was a Gotz doll which had become a bit floppy, so her elastic needed replacing. It turns out that the Gotz doll was the easiest to restring as all her limbs and head are supported on the same loop of elastic which is fastened to her neck ring with a nail through the elastic. The following photos are in the order of restringing.

Gotz restringing 1 - off with her head

Gotz restringing 2 - making sure not to loose the leg hook

Gotz restringing 3 - dislodging the wooden neck ring from her torso

Gotz restringing 4 - putting a nail through the new elastic

Gotz restringing 5 - The new elastic secured in the neck ring

Gotz restringing 6 - Heating her neck to soften the vinyl to accept the neck ring

Gotz restringing 7 - showing how to remove the neck ring from the head with some fishing line to help (this would have been done earlier if this neck ring had been correctly in the head rather than the torso!)