New faces

I went to a second doll meeting last week. It happened before hubby bought me Twyla but I never got around to editing the pictures for this post so now it's a good opportunity to introduce all the new acquaintances at once :)

The local doll collector's "club", if I may call it so, counts very few members. I learnt that meeting plans are often cancelled because only one or two people may be available at the chosen time. With one of the ladies on vacation abroad, the chances of us meeting this month were slim. However, the girl in charge made it happen. We gathered on a blanket by a lake with eight dolls among the four of us.

There were two ladies I'd met for the first time. One of them works in a fabric store and I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot of her :) She collects all kinds of dolls, including child dolls, three of which she brought to the meeting. I confess this type of dolls isn't my cup of tea, which is evident from the photos I took (or lack thereof). Only upon coming home I realized I don't have any full-body shots of them. They are all German dolls. The two in front are contemporary. They feel heavy, their hair is natural and apparently they are quite expensive. I don't remember the name of the brand, but they have a turtle logo. [Update:] The contemporary dolls are Wichtel dolls by Rosemarie Mueller. The vintage doll is Eva Harta by Goebel.
The owner's mother made them awesome crochet dresses and panties.

Poor brunette on the right will never know what hit her

Their shoes look like baby shoes, with real leather and buckles:

One of the dolls had a cute bracelet:

Behind these two is a vintage doll from 1957. The paint on the mouth and nostrils faded to yellow and the face looks a little crazed to me. I'd be afraid to sleep with those eyes in my room :)

I was actually glad this lady's taste in dolls is so different from mine. I have my childhood dolls (all toddlers) taking space in my parents' closet because I have no interest in them and throwing them out feels wrong. She happily agreed to take them in. Everyone wins!

Another girl brought a tiny boy doll. He's German as well. He reaches a little above the waist of my Barbie. I couldn't take a good picture to show the scale, but that's him among weeping willow leaves:

His arms (and probably legs) are flexible, with a wire inside. The hat appears to be attached to the head. The outfit is quite impressive for something this small.

And now, my favourites. The girl who gathered us all brought a Momoko and a J-doll. Momoko was rocking a very detailed traditional Belorussian outfit with a dress, capelet, underskirt, socks, boots and I think she also had pantaloons.

This is the top of the dress under the velvety capelet:

The poppies are those ones from a few posts ago.
I split them among the girls.

There is some mad detailing on Momoko outfits:

I'm not a fan of their faces but the outfits are so gorgeous, I may have to look into them.

The J-doll that came alongside Momoko was Promenade des Anglais, one I was considering when making my own choice. She is supposedly a bride:

Here is the bouquet up close:

The poofy skirt is easily removed to reveal some cool lingerie:

Without checking with anyone I brought my own J-doll to the meeting. It was the perfect occasion to see what I missed by choosing Lavalle over Promenade. Both have the same skin tone, same body and same hand shape. Promenade has jet black hair and darker eyes. They are from the same colour family as Lavalle's - a sort of a bluish grey. I could have sworn they were brown. It's very obvious in person, but somehow it doesn't show in pictures. I would have been disappointed to get a doll with blue eyes where I expected brown.

The outfit is a different story. It looks nice, but it's oversaturated with crunchy silver thread and trim. It sticks out and frays if you look wrong at it. The stockings have no stretch. The pieces aren't very versatile on their own. I much prefer Lavalle's sober outfit.

I was glad to admire Promenade in person regardless of all the issues. The face is angelic and the black hair provides a strong contrast with the light skin. It just goes to show how much Lavalle needs a fringeless black wig asap!

I learnt that the Momoko lady has MSC which she is willing to lend for experiments. I had brought my Courtney OOAK with a varnish problem specifically to ask for advice. I may take advantage of that offer, just to see if MSC is worth all the hype.

Unrelated to anything, we found a mini tomato. Pretty sure it's poisonous, but it looks neat:

That is all for the doll meet. Back at home, let's turn our attention to Twyla, the newcomer.

She is my only doll on a non-standard MH body. It will be very interesting to sew for her. I found it funny that she has better posture than the older body. Her feet are much smaller than I expected. I put them in transparent MH shoes to highlight the difference:

Luckily, Twyla has pretty shoes of her own. Unluckily, they are so soft that the heel bends under the doll's weight and she couldn't stand unassisted (but I already fixed that).

Gummy heels

Other things I like about Twyla: her purse, which opens. It has a skullette-spiderweb-dreamcatcher design!

Actually, what is there not to like about her? Hubby has great taste :)

I love how the eyebrows match the hair:

The facial screening is flawless, which matters to me because I never intend to paint over the phosphorescent eyes. I wonder if they'll still work under a layer of gloss though.

For some reason Twyla always reminded me of Rochelle. Hm... there are some similarities, but they are distinct enough now that I see them side by side.

Moving on to the box. There is the colourful box background. Hubby regretted having to throw away 13 Wishes Frankie's box due to baggage limitations, but now we have this one and I think it's the same.

This, on the other hand, is sad. Why all the head glue? Ew.

It was my first box to contain the full untranslated text. I actually enjoyed reading the diary, in spite of several typos. This part cracked me up:

Twyla has beads and wire, how cool is that? I so can relate to this problem! My cat was very careful around my crafts though, unlike poor Dustin.

A blank page in Twyla's diary was perfect for holding the memories of my little adventure of finding her.

Perfect

This is all that is going on. I started to make a hat to hold j-doll's unglued wig, but I couldn't finish it before the meeting. Independence day is approaching and I was going to make a traditional outfit; that is not happening this year either. I have to start big projects like this before the summer heat kicks in, so you are welcome to pester me with reminders any time! I hope to have that ready for next year at least.

Did you like the dolls from our meeting? If you are interested in more information about a specific doll, let me know and I'll talk to their owner.

The Black Kitty
(^^)~~