Instructions for making a Doll’s Waist Pocket

Large bag like pockets preceded our common practice of sewing pockets into garments themselves. Women wore pockets tied around the waist with long strings, under the skirt but over the petticoat. These waist pockets were accessed by means of an opening in the side of a lady’s skirt. They were sometimes worn in pairs, one on each side. Some of the most beautiful examples are decorated with crewel embroidery. The pocket might hold many things, such as household keys or a bit of needlework or a sewing rollup. 

These directions are for making a doll sized pocket.  Your choice of fabrics  will largely determine the success of the project. This is a great use for a special small scrap.  Also needed is some type of binding which can be bias cut light weight cotton fabric 1 inch wide, or as in the illustration shown, old used cotton seam tape.  A soft piece of old ribbon is another excellent choice. 

 Instead of using a strip of bias cut fabric, finishing the edges with a binding of twill tape is also correct. Cotton twill tape may be dyed for this purpose. This type of tape was woven on small hand-held wooden tape looms. Women and girls carried these interesting little looms about with them, to make use of spare moments, (we will not say idle moments!) A nearly endless list of uses existed for these tapes, as can be shown in any collection of early household linens or garments, particularly children’s garments.  

 

Making the Pockets  

 Cut out a paper shape using these pictures as a quide.

From fabric chosen for the back of the pocket, cut one back piece without a slit. The back may be of medium heavy fabric to add shape and substance to the finished piece.  

Cut one pocket front and front lining if wanted with a slit from the top as shown. The front of the pocket can be of light weight quilted work, or any other attractive fabric which will give an 18^th century or early 19^th century look to the pocket.

Baste or pin the front to the front lining if any. Finish the center slit with a piece of bias cut fabric At the point of the slit, either a double outside miter may be used or the extra fullness may be gathered and eased with tiny stitches.  

When the front slit is finished, baste the pocket front to the back, right sides out, and sew binding around the sides and bottom of the pocket. To complete the pocket, the center of a long piece of binding is sewn across the top of the pocket and extended in both directions to make waist strings.

36" Voit "Birdie" in an old dress given to her by my friend Phyllis and holding a pocket I made for her from a great early fabric!

 

This is a great way to use an early fragment of fabric you love.

See a great article on MAIDA about twill tape:
Use of Twill Tape in Antique Doll and Reproduction Doll Clothing
http://www.maidatoday.com/2011/05/use-of-twill-tape-in-antique-and.html

Have fun!   e

 

 

 

Be Careful Cleaning China Dolls

Here is a rather unusual variant of the covered wagon hair style.  She is planning her dress that I will make for her.  She was bought several years ago when China Head dolls were much higher and was expensive even with a badly reglued broken shoulder.  I like her chubby body. She needed new arms which I have added. 
The glue work was nicely done but in scrubbing too hard to remove excess glue, the person doing that also removed forever the precious pink tint of this nice early china doll. I am showing her here to illustrate a point and hopefully save other dolls from being harmed this way.

 Most of the old china doll heads that I have examined were painted over the glaze. First firing results in bisque, then the clear glaze is applied and fired, then the doll is finished with china paint and fired a final time at a lower temp.  Think about all of the pure white, glazed china heads dug up in Germany from the discard or shard piles beside the great porcelain factories of the nineteenth century.  Those are some that never made it to the final step.
The china paint applied over the glaze shows scratches and wear from use or abuse. The pink tint on some of the old ones. can be damaged by scraping or scrubbing.  This is true of bisque heads also. We have all seen bisque dolls with some of the pink tint worn off the noses.  So we need to treat the finish on these dolls carefully.  e

A new little one is born

Ramsey has a lot of long dark hair and is much loved by all of us. We had a cake to celebrate her birthday. May she have a long and happy life.  Great Grandmother Edyth

 

The three youngest.

Thrift store Finds for the Week

The apple does not fall far from the tree. My mother used to get on a bus and ride to downtown Dallas to check out the goodwill store in the 1950's.   She bought a few nice old dolls there and many other things. Jack's parents would load their three children in an old station wagon and go to the big flea market in Chicago every Sunday morning.   Jack and I enjoyed the hunt always.  I still love to go junking and get out when the weather is fine as it has been this past week here.  Local antique dealers volunteer to work in the thrift shops so a lot of things never see the front of the store. And what does is usually appropriately priced or sometimes over. All the same there is enough to keep me entertained.

 
My thrift store finds for last week are on the table pictured. The redware jar is a repro but nice on my painting table for pencils and such. The Staffordshire is old and imperfect but was once part of Jack’s mother’s collection sold by us some years ago and now back from the thrift! 

Open stoneware jars like this are good to conceal a plastic flower pot.  The doll size spinning wheel will go to someone else's doll family, as my dolls already have one like it.  There was also an immense Irish wake table I could not handle, with gorgeous William and Mary style turnings on a huge gateleg table. I would guess a date of 1900, not period or I would have brought it home of course if I had to keep it in the kitchen sink till I found a new owner for it. 

The white flowering quince blooming outside my front door today is the same one I had at the farm and have moved twice.   e

Early Spring brings Bunnies and Baby Goats.

Our Cashmere Goat kids arrived before the Easter bunnies each spring. They are the most charming and entertaining  pets imaginable when they are hand raised.  Penny gave us our first three does when we moved to the little farm. I have seen Jack with six adorable small kids at one time in his lap, on his shoulders and under an arm.  All that was required to have their trust was to sit on the ground each day near where their mother's were being fed, and the little ones would come to climb in your lap and be petted and played with. Here are some pictures of Jack and the goats. I wish I had known how to take home videos then!

  Cashmeres are not dirty like sheep. They are lovely pink and white. If they get in mud it soon dries and falls away from their hair.

Goats need lots of petting. Even our cashmere billy, Banner, was gentle and good natured.  The smell of a billy is something else.  We did not have him in the early years but rather hauled the does to a breeder to be put with prize winning sires.

Maggie was born in the ice of February and was the smaller of twins, drawn up with the cold. Her mother accepted her larger brother but would not have Maggie. I bottled her and she readily took to the house, as clean as any domestic pet and eating cereal from a blue Staffordshire dish.  She wanted always to be in our laps or right with us. and preferred our company all of her long life to that of the other goats. Here is Jack with Maggie tucked casually under his arm while talking on the phone.

 

 Maggie was exquisitely beautiful to me. She stayed as close to us as possible but had to be set outside at intervals like a puppy, and was made to sleep in a box by herself at night where she complained very loudly. I have had many lovely dogs and cats and a great many horses, but Maggie was my favorite pet above all. 

One wonderful spring we had six kids! Armloads of love. Who needs bunnies?  e

 

That beautiful printed fabric in my bedroom

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brunschwig-Fils-La-Portugaise-Ramms-Fabric-England-100-Cotton-Chintz-Aqua-/271767478103?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&rmvSB=true 

I was researching Brunswig and Fils fabric for an internet inquiry tonight when I came across a reference to La Portugaise,  the pattern in my bedroom.  I remembered the first time I ever saw it!  (late 1980’s)  When I saw La Portugaise remnants in Hancock’s years ago I went wild over it and Jack and I drove to 5 different Hancock’s and I bought every piece of it we found.   I wanted to wrap myself in it, eat it, sew everything about my room with it.  I get that kind of enthusiasm about a textile when it hits the right chord in me.  There was a strong stripe of purple in between the major motifs.  I made curtains and bed hangings of it, carefully stitching out the bold purple stripe I could not abide, leaving me with great rusts and coral reds and peach with peacock and blue greens.   Love it yet and it is on my bed this very minute.   Fortunately I had traded it all after a few years  to friend Penny who used it some eight or ten years and then brought it  back to me after the house fire, which is how it was saved.   At the time I bought mine in many many pieces for about $3. a yard, retail on it was about $165.    Looking for a bit of it tonight on the web, I came on the above link, telling me that it was used by Sister Parish in my cousin Brooke Astor’s drawing room.    Isn’t that fun?  By all accounts she was a magnificent woman. Wish I could have known her.    e

 

Here is some of the information contained in the link above:

"La Portugaise" is one of the iconic prints of the Brunschwig & Fils collection and has enjoyed a rich history.  It was notably used by Sister Parish in the original drawing room of Brooke Astor's home in New York City.  Alfred Hatley remodeled the room into a library with oxblood lacquered walls and used the same fabric.  That design is known as one of the most famous rooms in the history of American interior design.  A photograph of that famous room from 1967 was used in a Spring 2013 Brunschwig & Fils print ad.  The company currently markets iconic fabrics as designs that never go out of style. 

 "La Portugaise" is associated with other famous interior designers.  Both Billy Baldwin and Mark Hampton used it in their personal homes in Nantucket and the Hamptons.  It's also known as a favorite of Keith Irvine and Jeffrey Bilhuber.

The fabric design is currently available from Brunschwig & Fils "To the Trade" through designers and architects.  The yardage listed is 100% cotton and retails for $220 per yard, SKU BR-70110 (plus color code for current colors).  There is also a cotton linen blend for $336 retail. 

My red cape in the snow

Every 10 years or so we get snow.  You can see I have been going through old photos lately.

The snow came before I had taken the corn stalks down.

The back of the cape

 The wooden swing was a favorite place to sit. We were in lovely woods.

This was a splendid small art studio, complete with a full bath and simple kitchen. We lived in this tiny building while the Cape was under construction for three hard years.

The back door was more beautiful than the front one to me.

Newly planted shrubs show the cape was barely finished. 

 

Jack with his little black cat Cleo, for 14 years his faithful shadow.

 

An old wagon out in front