General Dolls' Hospital cue music....

So, the endless rolling heatwave driving me to ever more esoteric indoor pursuits, I decided to repair the porcelain miniature doll I'd rescued from the dumpster along with some big and beautiful unplayed with ones which I freecycled ages ago to very happy moms who planned on them for Christmas surprises for actual children.

Anyway, this little doll, very nice face, all porcelain and jointed and hideously dressed in horrible Victoriana, sorry if you like that period, but oh well, and her hair and clothes were GLUED on, heresy.

And I found that her arm fell off at the elbow and her leg came off in my hand, and I realized why she'd been tossed. Long long ago, I had a big doll, probably baby size, but I was small enough to think Trixie was Big, who was similarly jointed, except she didn't have elbows and knees, and one time she just fell apart, head shot off, arms and legs likewise, very traumatic for me her mother, and I rushed her to the Dolls' Hospital around the corner, aka toy store with a nice man who said, oh, I can fix her up easily, come back for her tomorrow.

And I did, and there was Trixie good as new (well, she was handed down from an older sister, so I guess I mean good as I'd ever known her!) head and limbs all back in place. And I realized they were all attached inside on elastic and hooks, aaaahhh.

So when I examined this new little doll, I had a flashback to how Trixie worked, and was able to do likewise with this one, except that the pegs that held the elastic were broken off.



So I inserted some canvas in a roll, up through the leg, hooked up the elastic from the inside and stitched the canvas to it, then let it pop back, so the leg went back just right. Then I took a look at the knee, similar sort of exercise except no elastic, just canvas, glue and a scotch tape splint holder. And the elbow, which was much harder.

They do say that elbow surgery is much trickier than knee or hip, and as a surgeon on dolls, I can attest to the truth of this saying. However, after a while in intensive care while the glue dried,



under the eyes of the Nurse Dollivers, she came through, and discovered that while she was under, I had designed and knitted her underwear and a dress and organized new hair.

No more glued-on wigs and glued-up dresses for her, no, we knit and sew around here and make clothes you can put on and take off and change up.

So she sat up, took notice and got dressed and adopted a triumphant attitude.



This was so much fun I don't plan on growing up any time soon.