This is a Hitty doll I am carving. I had a little "help" in that I bought a kit for her--a "blank" that was roughed out the proper size, proportion, etc. with a saw, leaving the detailed work to me. For my next one, perhaps I can do it all myself, as I have a little craft saw, and now that I have this one to use for comparison, I think I could get the size right. I also have an ash tree in the front yard that I can use for wood. Hitty comes from Rachel Field's Newberry Award winning book, Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, published in the 1920s. Rachel saw a small wooden doll (6.5" tall) in an antique store, and loved her, but could not afford to purchase her. After awhile, she could no longer resist the pull of this doll and, with the help of her mother, bought the doll. Rachel then wrote her rather exciting book from the doll's point of view. The original Hitty can be seen in a museum in one of the New England states (USA).
I first became acquainted with Hitty from an article in a doll magazine I was reading at a local library. The Hitty in the article belonged to a man in San Francisco, who took his Hitty with him all over the world. There were pictures of Hitty in front of the Eiffel Tower, on London Bridge, at Giza with the pyramids, etc. The man's female friends provided his Hitty with many pretty outfits to wear in the various pictures.
I bought my own Hitty from the Robert Raikes Co, which has since gone out of business, the last I heard. Hopefully, the business will resurrect itself, as the Hitty dolls they made were lovely. I love mine and will post her picture in a separate post. I've also made some painted cloth Hitty dolls, although they turned out a little larger than the real Hitty. Alas, my Hitty only has one dress and for a LONG while she didn't even have that.
Barb, I read HITTY over and over as a child--loved it!! As a matter of fact, I think I need to read it again.
ReplyDeleteNot one of my grade school teachers EVER suggested Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field, to me. And it was written over 20 years before I was in grade school! You'd think my TEACHERS would have read it as children! Oh, well--I never heard of Laura Ingalls Wilder until I was an adult either, and her books were written at least a decade before I went to school. I was very disappointed to have be deprived of these books as a child, but glad I at least had access to them as an adult.
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