Perhaps the best way to post these interim pictures (before the plates are uploaded) is to show the clothing on the doll as it is supposed to fit. I am still completely disorganized when it comes to posting, but I'd rather post disorganized than not post at all.

Emmaline's traveling dress went through about 187 permutations and I am still not entirely happy with it, but once again, it's an exercise in "get over it and move on". My goal since last year (and topping my list this year) is to quit over-thinking everything and reaching for impossible perfection; just create, pop things off into the world and keep on creating. So far this has worked wonderfully. I have been very productive despite my inner-critic.

After doing this for so many years, I can see measurable improvement and that is encouraging. Even if I am not 100% crazy about this dress, I like it 100 times more than the dress I painted for her the last time ~ and in another year or so, whatever dress I am working will be even all that much better.

I have been fighting mightily with my internet connection (hence the silence), but I finally managed to get the plates posted (almost up-to-date). So check out the gallery, download, and enjoy!

In the meantime, I am working on more stuff. The 1st Christmas Annual has been posted to the Reconstruction site (yay!), and the first issue is due to be posted this coming Sunday. I'm having a hard time coordinating the plates with the series at the moment ~ too many plates and not enough series presently, but I think it will gradually even out.

I'm excited about many new things to share very soon! Happy New Year!

I am working on the Morse brothers right now and thought I would post Michigan Morse today since he is finished. He is the older of the two brothers and although I struggled with his hair (dang, those antebellum haircuts!), I think he came out okay. I really wanted him to have wilder hair ~ more pompadour, more unruly ~ and definitely curlier. But I seem to have problems making hair look curly. I will have to work on that. Also, really, his hair should be more mousy-brown (my browns are just too dang dark ~ another thing I really need to work on).

If the hair bothers me too much, I will repaint it and do a PhotoShop fix, but for now I can live with it--especially since I like the way his face came out.

I haven't begun working on his clothing, so hopefully you will continue to be patient. That, and I know I still haven't figured out the best way to post stuff ~ downloadable from the post? In the gallery? I continue to be grossly disorganized. But at least I am painting, right?

If I get ambitious, I will hopefully have the younger of the two brothers ready to post for tomorrow. He's partly painted right now, but I am being skittish about doing his face since I have so much trouble with Razi-el (who I may yet re-do--just the face, though).

Both Michigan and Tennessee are in their early twenties when the story begins--a nice ripe age for an imminent war, unfortunately. I will be working on their seven sisters eventually, but it will be a while.

As promised, here are Olivia's accessories: practical work shoes (brown, but probably blacked for mourning, though the dye is fading), a black silk kerchief in lieu of a veil, and a lace bib/collar for Sundays. It's likely she wore a black collar for the first year of her mourning. Also, an apron. She's carrying a bottle of medicine concocted primarily of digitalis and a spoon. The medicine is for Emmaline Hunter, who has a damaged heart. Digitalis was one of very few medicines available on the cusp of huge medical breakthroughs due to the vast sea of misery caused by the imminent war.

We won't see Olivia again for a while, so this is it for her for the time being, but she will have new outfits when we return to her in the story.

It occurs to me that until I get the gallery in order (hopefully this weekend), I should link back to the paper dolls so that they can be easily found (especially since they are falling off this front page at this point and since not all of them will have tags at the side to narrow down the search).  So, to find the Olivia paper doll, click here!

Olivia's dress is kinda drab for several reasons: she's poor, she has to wear something she can work in, and she is in mourning for both her husband who was killed in a glass factory explosion, and her infant son who died from a fever. So no frills for her during this period. It's been over a year since the deaths, so the muted purple is socially acceptable, but she still has not begun to incorporate any trims or visible buttons into the mix.

The dress is also shorter length than a woman of leisure would don for anything other than picnicking. Again, that's because these are work clothes, so they have to be a little practical. She would wear petticoats (at least one) under this. I didn't make her a petticoat. Maybe I will later on.

Tomorrow I will post the rest of her accessories including her shoes, her kerchief, a lace collar, and her work apron.

Something to tide you over while I recover from a mung and try to get back on track here.

And okay, the mannequin is kind of creepy on this one, but I love the outfit. This is typical dress attire for a man in the 1850s: dinner coat with tails, cravat, linen trousers, silk hat. 

In America (the clothing here is British), after the Civil War, a lot of color in dress attire for men was not especially fashionable. Black and white was the mode of the day (or evening, I should say), with the tuxedo taking over, more or less completely for a while. Prior to that, men's clothing was still colorful (and interesting!). This is perhaps part of why I like this decade in particular. Colors after the war were not unheard of, just not the norm.

Love the mannequin's crazy coiffure. Good decade for clothes, bad for hair.

This awesome picture comes from the awesome collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

This is an amazing supplement from the Boston Sunday Globe, which produced numerous wonderful paper dolls and toys at the turn of the century. This was originally posted at an amazing blog well worth checking out called Antique Toy Chest.  

This is an amazing variety of stand-up style dolls depicting scenes from the literary classic Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It is very interesting to see such a painful part of American History reproduced so starkly (the man with the whip is pretty skeery~ as are the dogs and dying Little Eva), but the educational value of a supplement like this probably cannot be underestimated.

Like most of the Globe supplements, this one came with instructions which are not provided here. The instructions were usually about how to assemble the various scenes and descriptions of what those scenes represent.

I am tagging this entry "antebellum" because the dolls represent pre-Civil War characters even though this was produced in 1896.

Here is a pair of dolls from the Nadelman Folk Art Collection at the New York Historical Society.  The collection looks lovely ~ unfortunately these were the only images from it that I could find to share, but the site does have a lot of other wonderful ephemera to browse through.

Anyway, these handmade dolls are a wonderful example of mid-1800s paper dolls made by loving hands: "Jessy" and "John". There is great quality in the details: the patterns on the woman's apron and dress, the full milk pail, the tiny shoes, the ribbon on the hat, the curl in her hair.

It's interesting that both dolls are in profile, facing in the same direction. They may have been copied from images in magazines or books (or at least modeled after such).

John, has a nice book in his hand, a subtle pattern on his trousers (very fashionable in the 50s), and you gotta love the carpet and the chair.

John appears to be from the 50s because of his clothing and hairstyle (Jessy is not as easy to place in time since her simple dress could easily be from a number of decades.).  But John's sideburns, lack of a mustache, broad-skirted frock coat, and patterned light-colored trousers seem to set him solidly somewhere between 1845 and 1860.  The finding aid dates one of these dolls are definitely from 1855 and the other as undated. I wouldn't be surprised if John was the dated doll or if they were made at roughly the same time.

As always, you can see a little more detail if you click on the images.

I've been caught up in other things and neglecting this blog horrifically. Part of it was just my annoyance at all the spam (and thinking to move to another platform), but things have quieted down lately and I want to try to recommit some effort here!

So you don't care about what rabbit hole I have been down, let's look at some cool pictures!  Today I have a handful of auctioned dolls found while browsing Theriault's (a great site for pictures of these sorts of things!).

The first is an unusual set of "overlay" dolls (where a cutout image is placed on top of the figure in order to "dress" it). The description on this one reads, in part: "one illustrates the 'management of pale/dark complexion' by showing judicious use of proper costume colors, and the other, a full-figure model, with die-cut face, compares 'simplicity and ornament' in costume."  A fun an interesting reminder that many of these early paper dolls were not just considered playthings, but were ascribed an educational and practical value for women navigating a society full of very particular expectations.  These are American and marked as being produced by Scofield & Voorhees. By the styles, they were made in the early 1840s.

The second image is also unsual and one that I had never seen before: The Paper Doll Family (circa 1857).

This was apparently a set in which the family members were packaged and sold individually (I love the envelopes!). Also, notice that the clothes are designed in the style of having a "ghost" back to hold them in place (and are not two-sided as was typical of the fancier models of the era). The lack of a back made these cheaper and faster to produce. Unlike the overlays above, these were definitely playthings for children.  The description on the site says: "Comprising the complete seven piece family set (Father, Mother, Miss Adelaide, Clara, George, The Baby, Bridget the Nurse), each in its own envelope along with complete uncut set of double-sided colored costumes, along with matching uncolored costumes designed for child play. Sizes vary, father is largest at 6.5". Also included is advertising flyer for The Family, and envelope wrap for "Paper Dolls Furniture" with price lists and 8 small furniture accessories."  Fun!  These were produced by Anson Randolph.

And finally, below is a collection of German paper dolls produced by Mainz bei Josef Scholz (circa 1850s). This is a hodgepodge of mostly dolls of children. I love their tiny feet and little boots!

Click on any of the images in this post to better see some of the details on these lovely very old dolls!