Ethel-Maud: the early days, part two

 Before we start, I'd like to apologise in advance for the blurry photos!  As I mentioned in my previous post, I had to have a good old rootle around to find any old photos of Ethel-Maud from back-in-the-day.  For some reason they are all rather on the small side, so enlarging them has somewhat lost their crispness 😕

The first task called for some rather radical surgery on Ethel-Maud's arms.  Unfortunately I couldn't find a "before" photo; the closest I eventually came across was this one during the rather nerve-wracking process!  

Anyhoo I got them both re-attached the right way round, much to EM's relief 😉 ~ previously one of them (after all this time I can't remember which one it was now) had the thumb pointing backwards.  They had both been sewn back on at some point before she came to live with me.  Even if I do say so myself, they look a whole lot better now that I've had a go at them even though I admit it's not a perfect job by any means!  

To be honest, I was a tad perplexed as to how the arms should be re-attached, as I wasn't sure whether or not they had been correctly sewn back on previously.  It was also quite a difficult job in that the fabric at the top of EM's arms had become a little delicate over the years.  In the end I decided to turn in a tiny fraction more than had been done before just to give myself a little more fabric to sew through.  I guess arms on dolls, especially those made of fabric, do tend to get rather a lot of wear and tear ~ I don't think she minds that they are now a teensy wee bit shorter than they were!  

this photo shows Ethel-Maud's arms before her surgery

With Ethel-Maud being made from velvet, it wasn't as easy to wash her as it would have been had she been vinyl or plastic ~ and I certainly couldn't have given her a dip in the washing machine!  But she finally had a session in the dolly spa 😊

I think she definitely looked a little lighter in colour afterwards, and her eyes seemed brighter too, but the changes don't really show up well in the photos.  I certainly removed at least some of the 50-odd years of surface dirt, judging by the dirty patches on the wash cloth.  I was pretty nervous about cleaning her head because it is made from something very firm beneath the fabric ~ perhaps some sort of moulded card or papier mache.  I took great care not to saturate any part of Ethel-Maud during the cleaning process and thankfully all went without mishap.  I also chose a day that was nice and warm, so she was able to dry naturally and quite quickly.   

I had mixed results with the pen marks on her leg; the red came off nicely but the black is still visible, albeit much less so than before.

As you can see, I didn't have much success in removing the smudged marks from around Ethel-Maud's mouth.  I don't know if someone tried to colour in her mouth for some reason or if the original colour somehow got smudged.  The whites of her eyes look brighter now, although it's a shame that the brown of her right eye had worn away before she came to live with me.

Still, at least she and I know that she had a good cleaning session in the dolly spa, and that made us both happy.

EM seems to be somewhat conscious of her receding hairline, so I made her a pretty headdress a la Frida Kahlo 😊  Unfortunately said headdress has been lost so I will have to make her a new one at some point.

  

I also made her a simple new outfit to replace the hankie-held-together-with-a-brooch ensemble 😉  The dress is simply a very small piece of crocheted ripple; a set of four "peaks" was enough to create the simple sheath.  I crocheted a short length of chains to thread through the front and back peaks, which created a halter-neck effect.  I made the matching shawl using a 7mm hook and treble (US double) crochet, with a simple chain edging. 

Her shoes were another make-it-up-as-I-went along effort.  They aren't the prettiest of footwear but at least they are rather nicer than her old black boots/feet!  I also made a simple little bag for all her bits and bobs using the same yarn and matching ribbon.

All-in-all, I was very pleased with how surprisingly well Ethel-Maud's spa session turned out.  Now I just need to expand her very limited wardrobe.....and perhaps make/find something to keep all those future new clothes in!

Ethel-Maud: our early days together...

Ethel-Maud, with her friends Misty and Bridget, in the craft room

When I happened upon Ethel-Maud all those years ago I simply thought that she was a very sweet-but-sad-looking anonymous little cloth doll, but when she dropped through my letterbox she had a label on her foot from a maker called Norah Wellings.  I confess that I'd never heard of this lady before, so turned to the internet to see what I could find out.  During my trawling I came across a blog called Norah Wellings Journal  by Gillian Trotter, who has apparently also written a book about Miss Wellings.  I decided to email Gill to ask if she could tell me anything Ethel-Maud and this was her response:

"She looks like one of Norah Wellings Islander Dolls. You do not say what size she is but looks to be the smaller size of 8 to 12 inches? Norah Wellings was very well known for her wonderful Islander dolls and they were made wearing a mixture of different national clothing but most commonly grass skirts. However as yours has black shoes she would not have had a grass skirt as that particular model had bare feet. They came in sizes 8 to 36 inches , earliest having glass eyes, later painted eyes. Looking at the label on Ethel-Maud she would have been made from 1940 to 1950's (Norah Wellings stopped production in 1959). The same models were used for many years."

Gill has got photos of some lovely dolls on her blog; they made poor little Ethel~Maud look very shabby and down-at-heel 😟 She was in a somewhat battered condition when I got her, with pen marks, dirty and worn patches and re-attached arms (one of which had been sewn on back-to-front!). She also has a very receding hairline and a rather disfigured face; her eyes are wearing away, her nose is non-existent and her poor mouth has been very badly coloured in. My Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction lead me to suspect she was a plaything as opposed to a collector's doll 😉

The photos on Gill's blog also show dolls dressed in lovely outfits but Ethel~Maud arrived absolutely stark naked.....

.....for quite some time she floated around in a rather fetching hankie-held-together-with-a-brooch ensemble!  (By the way, sorry the photo above is a tad blurry.  I had to have a hunt around to find some old pictures of Ethel-Maud, all of which are somewhat on the small side, so they have lost their crispness somewhat with being enlarged!)

Despite her sorry appearance ~ or perhaps because of it ~ I really do love sweet little Ethel-Maud and as you will see in my next post about her, I have tried to smarten her up as best as I can 😊