Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Yarnarian Plays With Dolls.

Did you play with cutout dolls when you were a kid? I loved them, and to this day, can't pass a cutout doll book without wanting to open it up. You don't see many of them any more. They're available online, and in all sorts of other formats. Those little tabs may have bitten the dust. It's too bad. There was something so satisfying about punching out the doll and then cutting out the clothing.

I'm a war baby, and there were not lots of toys to play with as I grew up. I had a Betsy Wetsy doll, but not much else. Metal for carriages and such was not readily available in the late 40's. And Barbies were not yet around. My sister came along in 1952, and she had the Barbie collections. I used to knit doll clothes for her.

So when the American Girl Doll came out, my jaw dropped both from wanting the thing and from the exorbitant prices of the doll and the goodies. This is not a doll for the millions but for a select few. However there are knockoffs, and people sell adorable dresses at street and craft fairs and such, and I'm sure that Target has lots of pretty clothing.

Well, as a gramma, I have been wanting to get an AG doll for Miss P since she was 3 hours old. After all, Grammie has someone to spoil, and she's such a good kid when it comes to toys; not grabby and her parents have her donate toys in good condition to charity. So, when Miss P called up a few days ago and asked if she could have one and told me exactly what she wanted in the way of an outfit and doggie, i said of course. She was so excited, and kept asking if it were too much money to spend. I said that ordinarily it would be a great deal of money, but she rarely asked me for anything and that yes, it would be a Chanukah present for her.

So, now, boys and girls, we get to the meat of the matter. Ahem, there are AG clothes begging to be knit. Hee hee hee. And I own Sweater Wizard and there are sweaters specially formatted for an 18" doll. And I have lots of stashed yarn, and own lots of undyed sock yarn, and you know where this is going. Gotta knit!

Pssssst: I ordered a cheapie knock off for me. I get to play with dolls again. And being grandiose, I envision lots of little sweaters and maybe matching ones for the kid and doll.

Second childhood, here I come!

Mystery Sock news: Don't forget to post your pics of the Mystery Sock on Ravelry. Yeah, I know it's only a cuff, but out of cuffs grow socks.

Some purty pics of yarn coming up for sale at some point:






KV - I made my own paper dolls and clothing too, and I wanted to be a fashion designer in the worst way.

Bad doll enablers, you know who you are! - Thanks, I think. I feel a new obsession coming on! ;-D

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i remember paper dolls fondly, too. my sister and i made our own, and we both had a blast for hours designing their clothes. shes a clothing designer today, and me, well i got off track somewhere!

Anonymous said...

Great blog post. I love the doll dresses and the paper dolls.

LizzieK8 said...

Kathleen has free paper dolls to print out on her site every Friday!
http://kathleen-dakotadreams.blogspot.com/

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