Spring will come again

Last night we were blessed with a good rain.  My recently planted dooryard garden is just a tiny part of the grateful earth, but it is meanigful to me. I have there the twice transplanted white flowering quince and  paper whites that were around our dear red cape once.  I wrote a book on rugs for my red cape a few years ago, and the beginning and the ending spoke of the paper whites blooming again as a marker for the turning of a new year and a new begining. 

These will not bloom this year, being taken up and replanted in a new yard just as they would have flowered.  The long leaves laying flat but living and green, giving promise for the future are like an image of my heart now.  Though they cannot bloom now, I know that by and by there will be flowers again. e

John F. O'Neill II 1939-2012

My beloved Jackie has passed away December 28th about 2:15 pm...

At home here and in peace.  This of course is the hardest thing of my life. We had a long time to talk of it and he told me repeatedly he wanted me to survive and live forward..  I will be ok by and by, and wear Jack’s love like mink around my shoulders the rest of my life. e

Thank you for the comments here, I read each and every one more than once and thank you for the affection and support in them. 

Feather tree up

 

I am sure to thicken this grouping and change it in the coming days, but it is good to have a tree up.  In past years I have enjoyed serving goodies from the little sled and around it. I can do that with this arrangement by just moving the bears and putting in serving plates of cookies and pumpkin bread. 

The lovely little doll in a blue striped morning dress is a 20 inch Izanna take off made by Jan Conwell.  Hannah loves having her for a companion.  e

The doll's party

Dollmaker Jan Conwell and her husband came for a quick visit and lunch with friend JoAnne and me. Jan brought some of her creations at my request and I was lucky enough to purchase one of them to go with my new Christmas doll, as yet unnamed but I am leaning toward Hannah.  That's Hannah in the buggy.  Jan also brought back two dear old doll heads which she had replaced shoulders on for me.  These are huge shoulder heads about 9 inches tall.   note, the greiner type on the couch in a bonnet was made by JoAnne, from her own sculpt and mold with liquishay.  The Chase child is old, as is Hannah.

Antique doll Collector mag in November 2012

    The great article on rare cloth dolls will go in one of my scrapbooks full of doll information. Imagine a collection with 20 Izannah Walker dolls!

I keep hard copy scrap books I have had since the 1950’s, much reworked but a few of the original pages are still in it, going back in at least one case to a 1930’s antiques mag clipping. Many 40’s and 50’s clippings from mags given me by Stella Hart of Cleburne who was my doll collecting mentor from the beginning. That little lady when in her late 70’s and early 80’s would set out on a greyhound bus headed for UFDC convention every summer with a little black leather valise which would contain three small dolls, house shoes and a change of unders and little ,more. She would clamp a hat on her head and away she would go, and return with her dolls wearing ribbons. She lent me hobbies mags, and talked about her dolls and introduced me to Dallas collectors, notably Mrs Tyler who invited me into her home to study and photograph her dolls. Wonderful days.

 I was living on a ranch in Comanche county then, and drove back and forth to Dallas every few months to see my parents there with my little girls in the car with me. I would stop at Mrs Hart’s and show her what I had acquired or was dressing or such. My mama was searching the goodwills in Dallas for any doll item of merit. One item my mama turned up for me back in the 1950's  was a Steiff bear, of pretty good size not a small one, which I traded to a collector/dealer in Hamilton Texas for a child’s chair. The bear looked great in the chair but when the trade was done neither of us had them both to enjoy! The little chair went through our fire, and is now painted black and is with me still. It is perhaps my earliest New England piece.

 Many year later Elizabeth P some how turned up in Ft Worth with two brown cotton print dresses from Mrs. Hart’s estate. Mrs. Hart would never cut them up for dolls dresses, but EP did so. I have tiny scraps of them still. e

computer distress

My dear computer and constant companion, Mouseburger, Has suffered grievous wounds from a terrible invasion from India.  Both of my family wunderkind have worked on restoring Mouseburger to health and I am assured it is safe for me to use now. I am presented with a completely new operating system to learn and a suite of programs to learn and the loss of over 3000 photos as well as favorite links and recent email addresses.  Writing and research for future writing plus other files  are gone.  Mind boggling for me.    I have lost the way to contact many friends, so when I have  an email program working on Mouseburger again, I will request that you email me so I can have contact again.  I have lost files, but must not lose friends!  
Jack and I are thinking of so many friends in New England who have waked to see terrible effects from the storm Sandy.  Our sympathy and continuing concern are with you.  Blessings, Edyth

Playing Dolls with Jan Conwell, talented dollmaker!

Jan Conwell drove over today and brought some of her creations to visit with me.  It was a wonderful fun filled day. Jan is an artist who has a sense of whimsy as well as understanding the classic  early dolls I have always been drawn to collect. 

 

Her witch Marie Leveaux is amazing!  Jan says she did not start out to make a witch, but the doll just came to be.. Those of us who make dolls understand that characters sometimes just materialize in our hands as we work,   just as painters are alert to the lucky accident and know to leave that twist of fortune as it comes.  The little boy in pajamas who did not want to go to bed was a favorite of Jack's.  The Cinderella doll stayed here with me to enjoy for a while.  Resisting the little Izannah style doll in yellow was terribly hard!     Jan these dolls are art, congratulations on your lovely doll creations.  See a few more of Jan's dolls at   http://jdconwell.blogspot.com/search/label/Izannah%20Walker%20Dolls