A Garden of Virtues

I have noticed Dianna Effner has designed some vinyl bjd's that recall her storybook collection dolls from twenty years ago. I still have the outfit from my Goldilocks, though I ruined the doll long ago. I have been thinking of getting the bjd, which looks like a similar face mold. If there were one artist I would have liked to design bjd's, it is her. I am less excited because they are vinyl and because the eyes are painted rather than inset. Ashton Drake has been putting out a great number of vinyl bjd's. Some of them I have really liked. In addition to Effner's I admire the Indian maidens, whose faces have the sweetness I want for my collection. I am always looking for more project-oriented dolls that I can design or cross stitch for, and with my interest in New Mexican design I would strongly consider one or more of those. I wonder when the Franklin Mint will do a bjd. I was a little surprised that their Kate Middleton is just the standard 16" fashion doll. My ...

She does not have a pedigree. She has no identifying markings. I guess she is probably a supermarket or drugstore mass-produced porcelain doll from the last ten years. But for some reason her face and her coloration called to me through eBay. When I unboxed her I was not disappointed. I found she really is special-looking. So this morning (in the motel) I am straightening her hair. When I get home I will trim the uneven ends and recurl it. I have been trying to decide if I should make her a Snow White character doll or let her be a Victorian girl as she is. I have washed her blue dress, stockings and pinafore. I am just waiting till I am done with her hair to dress her.

I awoke this morning to my new Paradise Galleries girl. I am completely amazed by Linda Mason's dolls. This little girl has such a beautiful presence and scale. It's sort of something you sense in the proportion of the face and hands.

"The wind was hard and fast, howling against the immovable keep. Within lights glowed. Like beacons the panes of illuminated glass dazzled my eyes, so cold I thought surely they had frozen open. I knew not myself. I knew not my hands, which hung as exanimate wraiths from my arms. My clothes, dull rags, twisted around me, and it seemed they made no difference against the ice and the wind. I felt myself drawn into the warmth of the keep. I was past gratitude-nay, not past-but I knew that I had been reduced to a bestial state. I was too ashamed of myself and my imposition to look my benefactor in the face."   It was thus that we found "Caroline." I saw her in the St. Vincent de Paul resale shop and was captivated by her forlorn looks. I gathered her limp body in my arms, and Leslie and I brought her home. In the sewing room I removed her wig, dismantled her limbs, and after eyeing her stuffing decided to discard it along with the wig. I took her body pieces ap...

    Today we . - drove around Austin all day ! - shared a margarita cupcake at Sugar Mama's - met some nice people on the sidewalk who thought he was a girl - shopped at Secret Oktober - tried to see St. Mary's Cathedral, but it was closed It is so much easier to be with Leslie when I am in ophelia-wear (Victorian/vintage/gothic). Somehow when I am dressed "normal" I feel super-awkward. My goal is one day to never be dressed normal . ! I don't even remember anything about yesterday or the day before. My memory has gotten so short. It's shortening every minute. All I remember is writing poetry in my journal in the Indian restaurant. I remember holding lace in the antique stores. I remember walking along the streets of Austin with Nathan and Leslie. Nothing else . matters . at all.

I have not been spending much time on my computer at all lately . not even to write my story. I have been preoccupied with studying fashions of times past, and unfortunately I have no boundaries and no particular preference. Well, that's not true. The fashions from the 1840's must be my favorite, because they sort of make me grow still and stare with awe. They are not much studied, very early Victorian and post-Regency - but the hairstyles are what I love so much. That and I associate this look with Mary Shelley and many early Romantics; in fact, it is commonly called "the Romantic look." So when online I have been collecting fashion plates and information . that is it. I have not been writing my story or even buying things from eBay really. I think this particular fashion plate is immensely stylish. The woman in the white lace waist and green skirt . well, I am going to have that outfit. I adore the look of these women. It makes me think of things like small dos...