When I was a little girl, my sister and I received matching Bradley Dolls as a Christmas present one year. These southern belle dolls with big eyes and hoop skirts were all the rage in the eighties. Anyone who was anyone in elementary school had one. (My doll looked exactly like the one pictured, only she had a yellow dress.)
One night as my sister and I were getting into bed, I noticed that both the dolls were missing from their usual place on our dressers. We madly searched the house and found both of them sitting at our play table having a tea party with our plastic tea cups. There after from time to time, my sister and I would come home from school and find our dolls gone. When we found them again, it was always as if we had caught them in the middle of some fun outing. I remember feeling like those dolls were enchanted or alive. In time I figured out it was my older brother who was moving the dolls around as a way to entertain us--but the magical feeling about dolls never left me.
The doll to the right was the first porcelain doll I ever owned. A dear family friend owned a porcelain doll company. I used to look through her catalog of doll molds and drool over the finished products. I came home one day and found the green ware pieces of my favorite porcelain doll lying on my bed. Step by step this patient woman taught me how to make my own porcelain doll from scratch. As you can see, the final product came out beautifully.After that, there was no stopping me. My collection of dolls has grown over the years to include some expensive dolls of high quality, but this imperfect first doll still holds a dear place in my heart.
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