Valley of the Dolls

Completely OT - if you're looking for knitting content, you have my permission to skip this post!

I was never a great one for baby dolls - that was my sister. I got a second-hand Teeny Tiny Tears for Christmas (some of its fingers chewed) the year she asked for a Tiny Tears. After trying out the "feeding it with water, it wets itself" function on Christmas day (it leaked for what seemed like ages!) I never did it again. I was more interested in changing its clothes than actually playing with it that much.

Fast-forward to the late 70s and these were my favourites:


Claire, Kay, Mandy, Jasmine, Meredith

Yeah, Pippa Dolls. Anybody remember them? Claire was the first so is going a bit bald now. She was originally a "Dancing Pippa" but must have had some major surgery because that isn't her original body. Mandy's sporting one of my early handknits, the logo is supposed to be a heart, think it was intarsia. Jasmine's hair went woolly and is impossible to straighten. Meredith is a bit of an interloper as she's actually a Dawn doll Mum must have picked up at a jumble sale. My sister had a different set. We also had a Sindy doll each, and they were the mothers of this lot (despite the completely different anatomical proportions) - my Sindy went around adopting kids (which was the only plausible way we could explain the two black girls Mandy and Leila, and Marie the mexican).

More recently I've fallen for Blythes, Pullips and Momokos... Ebay is a terrible thing!


Blythe


Cornice (Pullip)


(Pullip)



They're kind of similar in size to a Sindy or Barbie, except that the Blythe/Pullip dolls have very large heads. Blythe has four eye colours (pullstring operated) and can now close her eyes because I added another string. The Pullips can move their eyes by virtue of a lever at the back of the head, I think it re-centres though so isn't poseable. The Momoko does nothing fancy. I'm not one for taking them everywhere or naming them or anything. I just love the attention to detail and the accessories. And the way you can pose them and they always look kind of wistful. Could be boredom of course!