Further Adventures of Penelope
Penelope doll has lived in my house without underwear or shoes for 13 years. It's something of a joke with my other dollmaking friends. But even without underclothes and footwear, she is still a charming doll, and my daughter played happily with her and her sister-Penelope doll. Because one Penny had short curly red hair and the other had long brown braids, Emily played that they were Betsy and her best friend from Carolyn Heywood's Betsy books.
But now Penelope hardly knows how to act. In the last week, she has acquired two pairs of underpants, two pairs of shoes, four dresses, and a flannel nightgown. Moreover, during the day when she has to stay for hours in the sewing room with the other dolls, she sits atop of stack of fabric lengths chosen and purchased with her in mind.
Here she is in her hostess dress, a pattern I designed based on her Norwegian blouse pattern. The grosgrain ribbons are stitched into the side seams, then criss-cross in back to tie in front. Does she need a hostess dress? Well, I don't know that she does. But I know that at 13 years old, she likes to dress up in sophisticated young-lady clothes sometimes, so long as she can jump back into her jeans and camp shirts and go back to being a kid. This Penelope is going to stay 13. Her brown-braided sister is only 10. I'm really going to have to do something different with their names--two sisters called Penelope are kind of confusing.
And she is definitely getting a new wig, probably a chestnut brown short and curly one. Her auburn hair is too limiting, as I want to dress her in my favorite color, pink, and as Anne of Green Gables knew very well, pink and auburn are incompatible.
My son requests me to share with the world this picture of his mascots: Racky Raccoon, Foxy Fox, Mounty Mountain Lion, Squirrely Squirrel, and Froggy Frog. They are finger puppets, very realistically and beautifully made by Folkmanis . He started collecting them when Floyd Raccoon traveled to New York City with us. Floyd and my son got along so well, Floyd sent one of his cousins over to live with us, and the family of mascots has grown since then.
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