Topsy Baby

 

This doll was made by 'Reliable' in the early 1960's and was sold as 'Topsy Baby' or 'Topsy Baby Darling'.

She has arrived for cleaning and repairs.

Her cloth in her legs is worn and has she has previous mends.

One arm has many mends too.

Quite a cute face!

Topsy Baby's owner wants her body kept original. Not totally replaced with a new fabric one. A couple of options are reviewed and it is decided to line her body with new fabric. This will keep her original cloth on the outside and strengthen it throughout the torn and holey areas.

So on to disassembly......

Topsy Baby's head has stuffing inside which is kept in with a wooden plug. This is a common finding in this vintage of doll.

That is a lot of stuffing!

But it needs to come out to clean her head well.

More disassembly.

Here is the front and back of her body....and a piece of muslin that I have dyed. The muslin will line her body.

On the right is one side of her body before it gets lined and mended.

On the left is the other side after getting lined and mended.

The lined body parts get sewn together along the previous seam lines.

And, after a bit of a fight (vinyl is not always easy to sew into cloth), the end is in sight.

One washed, lined and repaired body, several washed vinyl bits and a pile of stuffing that came out of the body are ready for the final reassembly.  The head has already been restuffed and plugged.

Done.

And dressed.

 

1950's walking doll repair

 

This is 'Susie Stepps'.

She is made od hard plastic and dates to the 1950's.

She had a fall and her eyes fell out.

While her eye issue was being investigated....her head fell off

She has arrived to be reassembled.

Here are her eyes.

This type of eye clamps on to a projection inside the head.

That is the projection inside the head between the eyes. One side is chipped and crumbled which is why the eye clamp fell off.

With the mount getting reinforced with epoxy putty, the eye mechanism can be clamped on again.

Head reattached, arms restrung and even some new eyelashes....she is ready to go home.

Mopsy needs a new body

 

This is 'Mopsy'.

She was made by the Regal Toy Co and has a cloth stuffed body that has seen better days. The cloth has weakened and has many holes and repairs.

She is stuffed with shredded foam. This needs to be replaced with polyester fiberfill as foam deteriorates as it ages. Mopsy's foam is long past it's best-before date.

Here is Mopsy fully disassembled. Her disassembly was not a treat! She was sewn with invisible thread. Invisible thread is, go figure, hard to see to unpick. Stronger glasses were needed!

New striped fabric is found and Mopsy's old body becomes the pattern for the new body.

Mopsy has a new body.

Mikey and Goldie visit the spa....

 

Mikey and Goldie have arrived to get some spruce-ups.

Goldie goes first.

She doesn't look too bad?

But, her cloth body has issues.

One foot is coming detached.

And the back of her body is torn. 

There are a few other cloth problems, so she will get a whole new fresh cloth body.

Goldie gets deconstructed so that a pattern can be made from her body bits.

And then, new body pieces get cut out using the old body bits as a pattern.

That is a lot of pieces to make one small doll body!

The new body is made.

Now her hands and feet have to get sewn into the cloth body.

Goldie is done.

Now it is Mikey's turn.

He has come to get new eyelashes.

Most of his eyelashes on the left are gone.

Here is how new eyelashes are done.

Small clumps of paintbrush bristles are dipped in glue and inserted in the slot of the eyeball. Once the glue dries, they will be trimmed to a less alarming length.

One could also glue human false eyelashes into the slot.

The paint brush bristles matched Mikey's original lashes the best so they were chosen.

Eyelash transplant done.

They are ready to go home.

A boudoir doll from the 1930's

 

This doll is a boudoir doll whose clothes were made in 1940 by the current owner's grandmother. She was stashed away for many years and emerged in a crumpled heap.

She arrives bald but with her costume.

What can be done with her smooshed face?

The face is made from molded cloth. She is missing some eyelashes. The little strip of cloth is all that remains of a wig.

A side view.

And a back view.

Her head is firmly stuffed with wood wool and trying to poke something through the wood wool to push out her facial dents is not working.

So I am going to pick apart the seams on the back of the head, remove the wood wool and see what to do next.

This is the back side of her face.

The base is buckram which is a loosely woven material stiffened by a sizing agent.

This limits what you can use to clean the face. Too much water and the buckram sizing will dissolve and lose it's shape.

But at least I have better access to push out dents.

The dents get pushed out and her head gets restuffed.......on to a wig.

Here is the wig she is getting. It is made of yarn. The yarn is sewn on to the remnant of her old wig and then gently glued to her head and styled.

'Doggy' gets a bath and some new fur.

 

This is 'Doggy' who has arrived to get cleaned, get a new tongue and have his bald patches dealt with.

He has a few bald spots....

...which are more visible on this side.

There are different ways to address bald spots.

You can place a piece of felt under the spot and colour the overlying honeycomb mesh to make the bald area stronger and less visible.

Or, you could do fur transplants by finding a similar fur and sewing it over the bald areas.

I wanted to try something new. I put felt under the bald patches and then needle felted felt fibres up through the honeycomb mesh.

It worked!

Here is the result on one side.

And here is his other side.

He has a new felt tongue too.

Quick? restringing.

 

This is a doll who has come with a request that she get put back together and have a repaint on her mouth. Her other paint issues will not be touched.

 

This would be a speedy job except that this doll is missing stringing hooks in her arms and head. Someone had rigged up an inventive system with thumbtacks and sparkly elastic, but this system had failed.

 So the head gets a new stringing hook suspended from a bar epoxied into the middle of the head.

 And the arms get new stringing hooks epoxied into the joints.

Which allows the doll to get strung back together.

She has had her mouth repaint done too so she is ready to go home.

Another 'Topsy' doll

 

These are the bits and pieces of a small composition doll.

This particular doll was made by the Canadian company 'Reliable'. They sold black dolls like this as 'Topsy' dolls.

She has had a previous repair in that the top of her head has an applied plaster texture in areas. She is going to keep that repair history inact and keep her aged paint. She will just get a few missing paint areas filled, painted and then she will get her torso fixed and get restrung.

The staple in the picture is where a tuft of wool once was. She would have had three tufts of wool stapled on to her head to make up her hair style.

Here is her head patched up.

Topsy is done

She came with a box full of outfits.

This is one outfit.