The Doll That Was Responsible

I was going to start this blog by writing about my new Liv doll.  I had just bought her and it seemed like a good idea - new doll, new blog.  Then I saw the J doll - Marche on Doll Epic's blog and I thought, 'there's another doll I would like' - yes, there's alway another doll.  And that got me thinking about the doll that started it all.

This one:

My first real Barbie - a strawberry blonde ponytail Barbie in a red swimsuit and shoes, with a wire stand.  (Why don't the new Barbies come with stands?) Her red lipstick has now faded to pale pink, her ponytail had to come out when the rubber band perished and she's lost some of her nail polish but she is the doll that started it all.

Obviously she is responsible for my love of fasion dolls and BJD dolls and I blame her for the growing numbers that keep coming home to live with me.  But she is also responsible for a number of other things.

She is responsible for my first foray into sewing.  New Idea published 'Enid Gilchrist's Teen Dolls', a magazine with trace off patterns for a complete wardrobe of Barbie clothes  and I wanted to make this wedding dress.

So Mum bought the magazine and said she would help me later on.  Of course, I wanted to do it now.  I had a lovely piece of white satin so I traced off the pattern, cut it out of the fabric, sewed it up - and I had HALF a dress!  Mum had to explain that the fabric should have been folded so I had a full front and two backs.  Now I sew for a living.

She was responsible for my dream of sewing and selling doll clothes.  When I was 12 a big new shopping centre was built near our home and I had a dream of a stall in our front garden full of beautiful Barbie clothes for sale.  That never happened. But now, thanks to the internet, I am taking the first tentative steps to selling to the world.  If you want to check them out, the links to my shops are on the sidebar.

And finally, when I started to write this blog post, I went to find this doll for her photo and found - "the Box under the Bed" which was full of more dolls than I remembered  I had. ( No photos - they need to be cleaned up first.)  So now I have to find a better place in our home for these dolls to live.  And she's responsible for that too!