The Winner of the Giveaway!

Is Maria Ireland!  Maria, please send your address to me at fddlj@aol.com and I will get the kits off to you as soon as possible!

And I wish I had 21 things to give away ! 

A Follower's Dilemna- Who Can Help?

Oh, I do hope I don't embarrass her terribly, but in her giveaway comment, Lucy Q, one of the blog's followers, said she had a 1920's dollhouse still in the box that was given to her by a friend, and was looking for inspiration to get started. She thought maybe winning the giveaway would do the trick.

Why do I keep remembering this, and SO want her to get that house out and get started? Yes, I'm a mentor by nature, and am always looking for a way to help someone meet their own goals. But I know too, that we all have little procrastinations in our lives , and sometimes need a kick in the pants to get started!

A dollhouse though seems to be a relatively reasonable thing to procrastinate on- unless you feel guilty or sad about it.

I bought a good friend a dollhouse kit two Christmas's ago. The real point was to have something to work on together, and I picked the house without consulting with her. We only have room for one house with my huge antique dollhouse in the living room.

I knew she wasn't terribly motivated , but couldn't figure out why until she confessed a year and a half later that she didn't get excited about the Antique Shop kit I bought her. So once I get Gammage House completely constructed, the plan is to shop for a house together, although she fancies building one from scratch.

Some of the things I am using in Gammage House are things that I have had, and have been meaning to use for years and years, What got me started- finding the little dolls, having an idea that they needed a home, then coming up with a story based on my genealogical research.

I have a fantasy that each of us would send Lucie a little gift for her dollhouse. Something to get her started, from the period of her choice.

Or sometimes a gift is a word of advice, some help , a story about your own house and getting started. Who can help?

One More Day to the Giveaway!

Make sure that you have followed the blog , and also commented,so you can be entered in the Giveaway! Drawing will be tomorrow at 6:30 PM my time.

See the Tutorial for Making Your Own Fabric to Scale

I have added a page (see the top of the blog) on how to make your own scale fabric. I was having trouble finding fabric both the right weight, and with a small enough print to make a dress for Althea, so worked on making my own fabric. There are three different weight fabrics represented. Check it out by clicking above, or by following this link. http://halfscaledollhousegammagehouse.blogspot.com/p/scale-historic-fabric.html

Althea's New Clothes

Now for a new challenge- making clothing for Althea . I made Persis a dress which I am basically happy with, but I have something in mind for Althea's dress that may be a little different .


I don't know if you remember, but as the sisters were getting ready for the family portrait, they had quite a spat, because Althea insisted on wearing her bloomers in the picture! We often use the word bloomers to mean underwear, but bloomers were actually outer clothing , and were named after Amelia Bloomer. Bloomers were trousers gathered at the ankle.

For more information on dress reform and bloomers, see
Dress Reform

Sensible dress for a woman physician at a time of huge skirts.

Less than attractive, but functional.

Poor Althea

I got the bottoms of Althea's legs made, and was excited to put them back on so that I can finish dressing her. Unfortunately , the fabric of her body is too fragile to sew them on. I really , really don't want to put a whole new body on her. You can see why people advertising dolls say "Her clothes are sewn on and I didn't want to remove them"!

I' m going to try adding some fabric stabilizer. If that doesn't work, i'll put new fabric over the top like a second skin. I want to experiment with putting a wire armature on the outside of the body so that she can be posed , so the body needs to be strong.

Interesting - see how her head is attached to the body. She doesn't have holes in her shoulder plate. I'm not sure what is going on with that- i will have to check to see if the twin doll has holes. Doll people say interesting things, don't they!

1/16 Furniture is Much Better!

I've been talking about the dolls being too large for a lot of the half scale furniture, even though I'm happy with the size of the house for them. I ordered some 1/16 furniture, and am in general, much happier, particularly with the chairs. The dressing table however, seems too tall- I think I've figured out a way to fix that. All of it is the red finish, and I'd like to cover the fabric with some antique fabric I have.

The table looks too large for the house , but good for the dolls. I'll just have to play with the sizes and see what works best.

The sofa still feels a bit small for Julia .

The dressing table is very tall for Julia.

The table seems tall for the 2nd floor .

But all things considered , the 1/16 furniture fits better than the 1:24.

Not Chairs - Lots of Well Needed Sleep

If you've been reading , you'll know I've had a pretty crazy month. I think sometimes my body knows that the only way to get me to slow down is for me to get sick- so here comes the bronchitis ! I worked on bits and pieces - I'm having a time fastening Althea's legs back to her body without replacing the antique fabric. I'm thinking I may have to attach them to a pair of pantaloons that sew on... Or maybe suspenders.. I think that is just the frustration talking.

As I took this picture I convinced myself that I am crazy to think I can save this leg fabric! So tomorrow, new fabric for new legs. Oh, her feet are fine!

One Sixteenth Scale

With a lot of help from Yahoo groups, I found out that my dolls are actually 1/16 scale. There may be a lot of giveaways in the future because I've already bought a lot of half scale .

Some of the furniture I bought will still work, if repurposed and kept in areas not usually occupied by the family.

I found a good book, Dolls's House Do It Yourself Book , by Venus Dodge . I found it on Amazon used, and it has both patterns in 1:24 and 1:16 . So I'm ready to get started on the furniture for the family ! I get tickled , because it calls a water heater a geyser , and has a lot of other terms not usually used.

I'll share soon, because I plan to make some chairs this weekend.

Sharing a tip on the "Prove you are not a robot" Codes

I disabled this on my blog- I still get to approve the comments before they are published. Some people have had trouble with spam without it and some don't know how to turn it off. I have trouble reading the things,and I guess I have trouble discriminating sounds, because the "listen" option is almost impossible for me!

Commenting on the IPad or IPhone can be so frustrating if predictive text is on- it always tries to turn the random letters into a word. After about the millionth bout - the last one being the iPad trying to turn hrtdmec into heretic(!) , I accidentally discovered a trick. I type the code, then other random letters until it stops predicting. Then I erase the extra letters. For example, when I typed hrtfmecsh, the prediction stopped turning up, and I just erased the SH at the end. Probablyas clear as mud, but I hope helpful!