Restoration Complete

I am pleased to say that this is Anne.

After the stressfull events of the last few weeks, Anne has pulled through with a smile as big as ever.  Fortunately none of the fabric disintegrated when I soaked (and resoaked and then soaked again) and washed it.  And there were a couple of buckets of very grey and dirty water tipped down the sink.

I rejected the coloured wool stuffing in favour of fibre fill and I replaced the homemade joints with plastic child safe joints.  The funny thing is that those old joints survived a lot of love, now the child safe ones are in place Anne will be enjoying a retirement beside the sewing machine.  

Where the face was embroidered on before, it is now painted, although I used the holes where the embroidery had been and the 'before' photo as a guide to reproduce the original face.  I would have preferred to keep the original embroidery but the shape was lost when I pulled the stuffing out of the head, so I decided to redo it entirely.  I was not quite sure what to do about the mouth, which was lopsided and very untidy, as I did not want to make it any bigger.  In the end I simply painted over the lines and made them bolder, so the smile is still lopsided but a lot neater, leaving Anne with her own, well established character.

And finally, new hair and clothes completed the restoration.  Beloved B observed one night "she's a fat wee thing - and naked".  He thinks that my dolls look hilarious when they have no clothes on.  I'm not sure whether its the shape or the joints or what.  The next night it was "she's an ugly wee thing - and fat".  I must be like one of those one eyed parents that can only see the good in their child because I think she is beautiful.

Kerrin thinks that she looks pretty good as well.  Now about the doll she had called Janey...