I started this blog about 9 years ago when I began making dolls.  I decided to revive it because my mother said that she has been checking it for 5 years, hoping for new posts...only to find that bunny doll staring at her from my last post in 2014.  So, this is for you, Mom!

Mary Elizabeth, made from a pattern designed by Edyth O'Neill, my bestest doll making friend.  Mary Elizabeth is wearing a baby bonnet that my mother brought back from Belgium for my daughter.  Mom also made the pink, smocked dress for Allie when she was a baby.

Mary Elizabeth loves the little chair that my great grandmother, Zelma Nancy, received as a gift in about 1886.  Zelma's daddy bought her the chair from a peddler's wagon in Long Lick, Scott County, Kentucky.  Long Lick is near Stamping Ground.  Not much goes on in Long Lick.  Stamping Ground has a Dollar General.  I bought a coke there a couple of summers ago.  That's how I know.

This little beauty is named Rebecca.  She is also made from Edyth's pattern.  Edyth made a face mold in 1990, from Sculpey.  I have been making cloth faces from Edyth's mold and attaching them to dolls made from Edyth's original pattern. Edyth painted her lovely face.  Rebecca and Mary Elizabeth are the results of this wonderful joint doll project Edyth and I have been doing.  Fun times!

This is a Kentucky sugar chest that belonged to my great grandmother's great grandmother.  It was made some time between 1820 and 1830.  It's walnut, a popular wood in that area.  We don't know which of Zelma's great grandmothers originally owned this sugar chest, but I know the names of all of them.  They were Mary Stafford Hiles, Catherine Coppege Coppage, Hannah Bell Vance, and Hannah Owens Devers.  They were all born in about 1800.

Here's the top of the sugar chest.  So many hot pans and dishes were laid on this chest.  I wonder what those pots and dishes contained.  Maybe some mashed potatoes.  Or pinto bean soup.  Or cornbread.  Mom loved her granny's oatmeal cookies.  Zelma Nancy was a sweet granny to my mom.  I think about all of the people who lived around this chest for so many years.  I wish that I could ask them questions.

The sugar chest has a lock.  Sugar was valuable.

I collect tiny bears - vintage, antique and new.

I also collect tiny, inexpensive china heads.  I have decided to not dress them.  I love their little bodies.