A Generous Spirit

Something special happened to me recently. Just out of the blue, totally unexpected.

Once a month I meet with a local gardening group to share seeds, produce, expertise and occasionally, muscle. We weed and dig and admire each other's garden's, sharing cuttings and a delicious afternoon tea where we all contribute our home-made cakes and biscuits. One of the gardeners, Belinda, brought along her childhood doll to show us (well, me mostly, as I'm an avid collector and maker of various treasures).

Belinda produced  a hand-woven basket she had used for her own babies when they were small, with a lumpy towel inside. It was exciting to unwrap her. Sadly, her eyes were stuck shut as she'd been stored a while and the blinking weights had become gummed up. 

I was totally gobsmacked when Belinda offered her to me to enjoy, to appreciate and look after. The doll, an antique German bisque doll with a composition body, had been given to Belinda when she was about 13 by a friend of her mother's. Belinda called her Josephine, shortened to 'Josie'.

Since this doll was made in 1910 and about 109 years old, I was worried about how to open her eyes without damaging her. I checked the Internet but didn't feel confident to attempt it. That night, I rang the convener of a Sydney Doll Fair, who gave me the number of  'The Doll Doctor,' Barbara Hancock. She kindly explained how to peel back the wig, check the head markings and fix the eye blinking movement mechanism from inside the head. What a relief when her eyes moved after several moments of gentle prodding! After cleaning her eyes with a cotton bud, she was as good as new. How amazing to think she is still in such beautiful condition after all these years.

Here she is wearing the smocked dress Belinda made for her in school sewing classes. What a sweet dress! Belinda decided to hold on to her dress.

The doll was uniquely numbered and marked, made in 1910 by Armand Marseille, who was born in 1856 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the son of an architect. He emigrated to Germany with his family in the 1860s. In 1884 he bought the toy factory of Mathias Lambert in Sonneberg and started producing porcelain dolls' heads in 1885, after acquiring the Liebermann & Wegescher porcelain factory in Köppelsdorf. At the height of his business, the factory produced a thousand doll heads a day. These were produced until about 1930.

I love this vintage floral fabric which Belinda's Sewing teacher gave her to use.

I spent the next day rummaging for suitable clothes for her to wear, dressing her in them, and photographing her. She is quite large, about 60 cm tall, and vintage baby clothes fit perfectly.

That afternoon I made a collaged hanging for Belinda with heartfelt thanks. I tried to find fabric scraps that matched her dress, and kept to a vintage colour scheme. I included a feather from one of my Laced Wyandotte chickens as Belinda had loved her own Wyandotte chickens years ago.

Here's Josephine wearing her vintage crocheted silk dress which I had collected and mended.

I've given a delighted Belinda her wall hanging, and she's seen the new outfit, and taken her smocked dress home as a momento.

What a generous-hearted gift, and I am still stunned! 

Thank you, Belinda!

Here she is with a new friend... 

This special gift reminds me of other kindnesses I've received over the years. Once when I was going through a hard time in my thirties, a lovely gift of $200 appeared in my mailbox, in an unmarked envelope. I never did know for sure who it was, but I suspected a gentle family who I used to visit. I was feeling sad as I'd gone through a couple of years waiting for a court case over workplace stress, and broken up with a boyfriend. With that money I bought a beautiful Birman kitten who purred and snuggled with me for 21 years, bringing so much happiness. 

This is a collage I did of Tara after she died. Her full name is in the frame... Her Serene Adjacency, The Lady Tara Fluffy Bum.

Now it's my turn to offer some kindnesses back to the universe as the opportunity arises...

I'd love to hear of special gifts of kindness you might have received or given, too.

Love,

Vintage Baby Clothes and Lace

Hello again friends,

Vintage baby clothes have always tugged on my heart-strings - especially gentle whites and creams, even those yellowed with age. I've been collecting since I got my first job as a teenager. I could only afford charity shop prices - back then 50 cents or $1 was the norm. My Hope Chest gradually filled with little items that I hoped to see on my own babies one day. 

I had to wait at least 20 years for it to happen, so that's a lot of collecting!!! Below is a cotton petticoat on which I embroidered a pink bow and some rosebuds. 'Sugar Britches' is the model here, a porcelain ad cloth life-sized baby doll I made in my twenties.

I can't believe how people could throw out beautiful heirloom items. This pure wool blanket is light and warm and soft, tastefully embroidered with cream flowers.

And yes, I did use it, as a pram blanket in the old cream cane pram I bought from a shop called 'No Horse, No Wife, No Moustache' about 30 years ago, which served my three beautiful babies.

Here's the old pram - it was a Summer and too hot for a woolen rug...

And another Summer baby! 

Here is a detail of the flowers:

This dress below is superb - in a soft, light wool crepe, in a golden creamy tone with fine white cotton lace. What a glorious find!

Here are some lace details:

And here is my daughter Roisin wearing it years ago!

Next is a 50's or 60's synthetic and lace dress in white with a bonnet to match. I do prefer natural fibres, but it's sweet. You don't see them much any more, even in opportunity shops. 

This dress is also synthetic, but beautifully hand made, smocked and embroidered.

These baby shoes are modern leather in a vintage style. I altered them (not permanently!) by putting some lace held in by pictures of vintage babies... a fun decoration.

Below is a card I made a while ago using a stamped image, a feather and some lace pieces.

And a wedding collage...

I'm joining Wen for Simply Neutrals #49 at her blog AppleApricot. Come over and join us in celebrating neutral beauty of all kinds.

Stay well, and I'll see you soon.

Lace Cover and Lyrebird Song

Welcome Friends,

In these Winter months I've been enjoying sorting through my collection of vintage baby clothes, reminiscing and washing any with marks that have appeared over time. 

I put one dress on the display stand for a while and spray-painted a cake stand pale pink for a little vignette of velvet roses, a tiny bear and vintage baby shoes with a fairy (my sweet daughter 13 years ago - she's not impressed with being a fairy!). She wore the baby shoes with the many vintage dresses I showed her off in. The roses are from my garden. I only have a few blooming, but it's the middle of Winter here on the south east coast of Australia. We had a trace of a frost this morning, but now it's glorious sunshine.

Previously I showed you my plans for the cover of an old lace sample book I have been working on. 

It's now finished, but it turned out a little differently from my first plan - but looking back, I like them both! I should have made two!! Here's the finished cover.

The back cover...

Gorgeous old cotton reels...

A close-up of some of the lace...

Here's one of the lace sampler pages inside...

This mauve velvet millinery flower just matched this post...

Here are some of my chrysanthemums from a few weeks ago - they are finishing now, looking bedraggled. But here they are in all their Mother's Day glory!

And a superb David Austin mauve rose...

Now for a natural interlude... Our local lyrebirds are calling away madly trying to attract a mate. There are mounds just near our house - this forest is at our back fence.

A perfect habitat for lyrebirds, a myriad of other birds, possums, gliders, wallabies and snakes. We've only seen red-bellied black snakes in our garden, not the browns, thankfully, but they are around here too.

The lyrebird's sounds echo through our little glen as I hang out the washing. One day I decided to stalk him with my phone camera in hand... 

I had to leave the track to follow his sound - not an easy walk! Sneaking as quietly as I could as I came closer, closer, so slowly - they are so timid and can run fast through the undergrowth. I was rewarded! My camera was not so good, and it was so hard to hold it still in the low light understory of the trees.

Here he is with his tail over his body like an umbrella... calling his heart out for a mate! I was about two metres away from him, trying not to crack a stick under my feet.

So awesome! His song was so loud! I tried to move to get closer only while he was singing, so he couldn't hear me.

His song was amazing, mimicking crows, magpies, cockatoos, whipbirds and other local birds, as well as what sounds like a nail gun to me. I managed to video him for about an hour, and edited it down to this:

I'm joining Wen at Appleapricot for Simply Neutral Tuesday #46 . There you'll find a meeting of like minds and hearts who love using neutrals in their artworks. 

See you soon, and I wish you a creative boost as you enjoy all this neutral beauty.

Love,