It is two weeks to Miniatura at Stoneleigh.
I am glad of that because I’ve been ill again with intestinal trouble but I’ve got enough time to get better and all I want to do is sit quietly and assemble dolls.
This is a good thing. I will have five new dolls to show, all small 24th scale and under. I am so glad I used the high temperature wire I used for the Egyptians. I wish I had used it for the kittens, but it just looked too weedy. It has to be, to enable the stringing. Stringing is still an immense difficulty.
You can see why. This is the upper arm of a doll. I do not have big hands. This arm has emerged from the mould quite soft with hopefully enough of a hole in it for the elastic to pass through. When it had dried I had to be able to hold it and rub it to remove the seam lines and imperfections, and make the end you can see round enough and empty enough for the lower arm to fit inside it. You can see how easily it could be broken, just holding it, before it had turned to stone in the kiln. There is a hole which I have made at one end which has to let the elastic out. The hole cannot be too big, if it is the next joint will not sit in place, it cannot be too small, or the jewellery elastic will not pass, the difference is fractions of a millimetre. On the mat are many arms, and some thighs, some distorted in the kiln, some I broke when cleaning, some will have fired with a hole too small to let the elastic pass.
The dolls I am making, are, like the Ancient Egyptians, composed of fourteen parts of porcelain, internally strung and moveable and poseable, their hands and feet swivel, their elbows and knees work, their heads move, they will all last hundreds of years.
Stringing the arms is not too difficult. Stringing the bodies is fiendishly difficult. I make wire stringing hooks from the 32 Gauge wire I used to make earring hooks for twelfth scale dolls. It’s thin, it breaks, it has to curve in the armhole of the body and out of the neck, bending invisibly inside where I cannot see what it is doing. I am only able to do this after thirty three years of practice. Thirty three years ago there would have been swearing and giving up but I am now in the far reaches of impossibility. As I have done it once, I know I can do it. There is a huge wastage rate. I have trays of tiny bits of porcelain that are just no good.
However, there will be new dolls. Stay tuned, I’ll show you soon.
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