"On A Little Chair Dolls" - Commissions

Welcome to my blog about my dollmaking enterprise as  "On A Little Chair Dolls."  

I love making dolls, and I accept commissions, for making a doll in the style of my "Boy" and "Phoebe" dolls.  They are Izannah Walker style folk dolls.

I also make Googly dolls, on request.


Please click on "Gallery of Dolls" tab above, to see "Boy" and "Phoebe," and also a few Googly dolls.


I put a lot of care into every doll, and each one takes several months to complete. 


For inquiries about having a doll made for you, please email me at Tiredself1@gmail.com.

Googly Goes "Back East"

In late December, I finished another one of my interpretations of a Googly doll.  She has flyaway hair, as you can see and is dressed in her scoot-around dress, with a book bag. 

 Pictures can be clicked on for a larger view.

I made her for a trade with Artis Corwin, a talented dollmaker whose work can be seen on the Maida site.  I used my own patterns for the clothing.  Above is the Googly walking on her way to school, maybe passing by a dog.   I like Googlies for their various expressions....

Below she is in her other outfit, her school uniform.  I pleated the skirt so the green is on the inside pleats, and gave it a little pin as I remember my tartan skirt had one when I was in the sixth grade.

Her little bag and shoes I made of leather.  I used Gail Wilson's pattern for the shoesies. 

I made the teeniest shirt I have ever made.

It was fun to do a doll trade with Artis.  

New Googly Available

This Googly is now available for sale on Etsy..... she is twelve inches long, and comes with all her clothing pictured.  She seemed to like pink so much, I gave her as much pink as I could.  Her wig is made of human hair, and all her clothing is handmade. 

The dress is cotton with vintage old stock crepe du chine sleeves.  Her underthings are of the same crepe du chine.  For her dress and hat trim I found old matching ribbon.  Her shoes are made of leather with tiny bows. 

Her hair can be styled, combed, even washed or wetted to take curlers.  I could not think of a name for her yet, but am calling her "Pinky."  I think she has some of that Googly childish yet somewhat adventuresome charm.  Her face is made from a mold I took of my own sculpt.  I painted her in acrylics.  I do enjoy making these dolls.  

Note to Maida members:  If you are interested in this doll, I am offering a discount to Maida members.  Please contact me through this site or through Maida, and I will adjust the Etsy price.  

A Pink Googly

Here is another "Googly" doll, that I just finished!

She is my interpretation of a Googly doll.

I hand-sculpted the original head in Paperclay.  The clothing is all handmade by me.  There is old-stock garter trim on her dress.  The sleeves (and her "knickers") are made of old-stock crepe-du-chine fabric  from the 1930s.  I made her hat from new hat-straw, and handmade her booties and wig.  The photo above was taken with the stand underneath, which distorted her dress. 

She took many months, because I worked on making a pattern for her dress, tried to get the wig just right, and the summer was so busy.

Here's her pigtail look, using new ribbon for hair ties:

Thank you for taking a peek.  

Inspired by Googlies

After several months of designing my own pattern for the body, and using my original sculpt for molds, I have finished my own interpretation of a Googly doll.  She is available on Etsy.

Her arms rotate forward and backward, on her wooden shoulder joints.  She is weighted with a little bag of artist sand, so she can sit well.  She also comes with a large hair-bow, like little girls wore in the early last century.  

Her head is of Paperclay, painted with acrylics and sealed.  Her hair is a wig made of human hair.
She comes with all her clothing and her handmade shoes and hat. 

You can see the listing for the doll here in my Etsy shop.

Patterns for Unders

The little Googly doll is being fitted for her underclothing...  I tried a pattern from "The Dolls Dressmaker" by Venus Dodge. 

Since I had never used this book before, I cut the pattern out first using striped scrap fabric.  Batiste intimidates me somewhat.... I have a hoard of it, because I put off using it.  

Anyway the pattern worked well for the knickers as it turned out.  I had her hair on, to show a friend, but have to take it off again as it's something you put on last.  But she looked cute here so I had to take a picture.

I have been making patterns by tracing on artist's palette paper, finding that is a good paper to use for a pattern piece... coated on one side and writeable on both sides....

Little Googly Doll

Here is a new eleven inch doll I made.  She has a cloth body and head hand-sculpted by me in paper mache; she is inspired by the "Googly" dolls which began to be made around 1903.  The Googly dolls were very popular.  Side-glancing eyes had been on dolls for many years before the Googlies, but "googly eyes" are even larger.
 

Googly dolls are so fun.  I am planning to make her some sisters and maybe put a few up for sale on Etsy.