A friend of a friend of a friend...

LOL, don't you just love stories that begin like that?  "I know someone who knows someone who's related to someone..."  Well, that's sort of how today's story begins.  My mother's cousin had a friend who recently passed away, and this friend was a doll collector.  Cousin, knowing that I love dolls, sent me a couple'a pics and asked me if there was anything in the group that I wanted.  Here's what the mayhem looked like, clean back when Hurricane Barry was in full swing (note coverage of the hurricane on the television).

I think I see a Madame Alexander Pussycat in that mess, and there are quite a few brides.  Initially Mama's cousin only wanted shipping and handling costs paid for these dolls, but just to be safe I only asked for three.  Y'all see if you can find them in the pictures above, and please forgive the cluttered background; the library is still giving out goodie bags for the reading program, and they're piled on the left.  Also note the welcoming committee, consisting of three American Girl dolls and my grandmother (LOL).

My choices were one of the brides, a cute little Oriental baby, and a tall girl in a lovely shade of pink.  I had shipping and handling all ready to go, but instead of money Cousin asked for some of Great Aunt Kathryn's dolls, of which I'm currently in possession.  She asked for a Shirley Temple and three Kewpies, so that's what she's going to get.

I had four Shirley Temple dolls and eight Kewpies before the trade, so that seemed like a fair trade indeed.  My great-aunt's dolls are all exquisitely crafted and dressed, and I have a post in the making for all of them as well, but it'll be VERY heavy on the pictures and thus will take awhile to complete.

Regarding my new girls, I'm going to go from right to left and show the bride first.  I suspect that she is a Sweet Sue doll, and if so she'd only be my third American Character doll, after Tressy and Mary Makeup.  Please ignore Grandma's groady door.

"Sue" is tall, about twenty-one inches, and I'm still not really sure if she is indeed Sweet Sue!  She certainly does look like a Sweet Sue doll, but to my great chagrin not all American Character dolls of this size are marked, and so it is with my new girl.  No marks on the neck...

...no marks on the back either.

Nope, no marks at all!  That doesn't mean that this doll isn't Sweet Sue, but now I'm not sure and probably never will be unless told different.  But..."Sue" has stuck, so Sue she shall be!  She does look almost exactly like this doll (a confirmed Sweet Sue bride), and she definitely has that Sweet Sue face, complete with red rosebud lips and aqua sleep eyes.  She needs her eyebrows redone.

Sweet Sue dolls were jointed in multiple places, with joints at the knee, elbow, and ankle being the most common.  My girl has joints at the elbows and the knees, but she also has joints at the wrist that are beginning to come loose.

Oh my.  I have searched all over Google, and yet I've not found a single Sweet Sue doll with jointed wrists!  What beautiful hands she has, though!  See the nail polish?

Sue's long sleeves unfortunately cover her pretty hands, but they also hide her loose joints.  I don't know how I'll ever repair those wrists.  I know how to restring dolls, but Sue is a walker and I've never tried to restring a walking doll before.

Being a bride, Sue is clad in your typical bridal gown, which in this case is made from copious amounts of satin, lace, and tulle.  This is most obvious on the skirt, which incorporates all three fabrics.

Every time I handle this doll I start humming "Nights in White Satin," due to the amount of satin used on this dress.  LOL, even though I'm very fond of that long satin skirt, my very favorite part of this ensemble is the veil.  It's very voluminous despite being only one layer of tulle, and it covers Sue's face completely, just like a veil should.  Or it could if I'd pushed it forward!

I have two other bride dolls in my collection somewhere, but their veils are unfortunately not long enough to cover their faces so I'm glad Sue's does.  For some dumb reason I've always liked watching grooms unveil their brides...and yet I said that if I ever married I wouldn't bother with a veil at all!  I wanted a crown of flowers instead!  I think it's unlikely that I'll marry at all at this stage in my life, but I still love the veil-lifting.  Most of the veils I've seen on dolls are attached to some headband or hair tie, with a few attaching to a mantilla-style comb, but Sue's veil is attached to what appears to be a flat headpiece that looks like a pillbox hat.

The headpiece bit looks like this up close.  It has a small velvet ribbon with a rhinestone attached.  Parts of the skirt have these ribbons too, but the close-ups I take of these bits are always lousy.

A pillbox hat veil is not as unheard of as one might think, but the ones that I've seen aren't as long as Sue's veil.  The tulle layer is hemmed with a band of lace.

The tulle does have a small hole towards the front, unfortunately.  That's to be expected on aging tulle and it's not even terribly noticeable, but it was still a bummer.

The rest of the dress is in relatively good shape, though the tulle overlay on the skirt is a little dingy.  Nothing that a dab of canned air can't fix. Under the dress Sue wears this slip, made of more satin and tulle...

...plus a cute set of bloomers, also made of satin.

These shoes finish the whole look.  They're yellowed with age and fasten at Sue's ankles with snaps.

So pretty!  I wish I could show y'all everything about Sue's dress, but if I did that we'd be here all night.  Anywho, underneath her veil Sue has a lovely reddish-blonde wig, done up in a style that I could never redo in a million years if it came undone.  The fibers feel synthetic.

One source that I grubbed up indicates that a synthetic wig and strung joints are both indicative of an earlier doll, and if so then I made a good choice with this one!  I've always been fond of Sweet Sue, and it appears that I now have one!  Tam also has a couple of nice posts about Sweet Sue dolls if any of y'all are interested in looking (posts are HERE and HERE), and so does Doll Stringing Extravaganza.  The faces of these dolls vary a lot.

Let's move on over now, from vintage plastic to modern porcelain.

Long ago I saw a doll like this in Doll Reader.  The doll in the article was a Kestner doll, but she'd been done up to look like an Oriental child and she was adorable.  My doll is NOT a Kestner, but she has the same basic look.  I've chosen to name her "Mei," which means "beautiful" in Chinese.  Mei is dressed in burgundy and black with these adorable little shoes that love to fall off.  They're made of tan velveteen with a copious amount of beading on the toes and sides.

The inside of the shoes are nicely finished, complete with a faux-leather insole.

Mei's jacket is made of burgundy and gold brocade, and it closes with frogs.  She is only the second doll I own with an outfit that utilizes frogs (Ana Ming is the first).  Instead of closing over a knot, these frogs close over actual buttons, made of shiny black plastic.

The pants are plain black sateen pants, with no embellishments of any sort.

Mei has an amateurish paint job, but I love her expression and plump cheeks.  Her porcelain is very smooth.

Mei's hair is short, smooth, shiny, and soft, and unsurprisingly it's a wig.  The style is a short, low-maintenance bob.

The back of Mei's neck is marked "Jo-Don's Dolls 1987."

Jo-Don's Doll Shop apparently was apparently in Chillicothe, Missouri, so Mei could very well be a kit purchased from there.  Google lists the shop as "permanently closed," so I can't do an online search of their wares and confirm this, but Cousin's friend lived in St. Louis (closer to Chillicothe than Malden is) so it would make sense for this doll to have come from there.  Anywho, looks like I've got another homemade doll to add to my great aunt's collection!  Mei's clothes can come all the way off, and they may have to in the near future as her strings are loose.  Easy fix.

Lastly, the girl in pink.  She's a Saucy Walker clone.

Her head is vinyl, and she has blue sleep eyes with big red lips.  Her eyes are supposed to be blue (I think), but they're more silver-blue in color, as opposed to Sue's aqua eyes.

Her hair, thank God, is rooted.  I wasn't in the mood to rewig another doll after having to do my other Saucy Walker, so I'm glad to see those roots.  The style is a mite odd, though.  Not only is it flat from storage, but it's short on the very top and long in the back.

This doll predates the invention of the mullet by quite a hair (LOL, bad pun), but that's the style that she appears to have!  Hey, I've said this before and I'll say it again:  if properly styled and maintained a mullet can look very nice.  But then again I think Ed Sheeran is cute regardless of how he styles his hair, so I WOULD say he can rock a mullet!  Unfortunately my doll's hair merely looks...odd.  It needs a good combing and conditioning too.

I'll bet a nice bow will make it look better!  The hair is at least clean and shiny and not falling out in clumps, and it's a pretty color.  Unfortunately this little lady has some pretty serious damage in another place, right on the front of her pretty pink dress.  My cousin thinks this hole may have been perpetrated by a mouse, but I wonder if it wasn't just age-related.

That hole is too big to be darned, but I can certainly patch it somehow.  I may excise the frayed edges and make that hole heart-shaped...if that won't cause further damage, that is.  Either way I can find a way to conceal or improve that hole.  I'm not sure what I can do about the damage to the hem, though.

Oh posh, I can conceal that with a nice new ruffle or some lace trim.  I just wish I didn't have to, because I love this unusual pink material.  Indeed, it was the pink dress that I wanted more than anything.  The flaws can be repaired, though; whatever fabric I can use to mend the hem I can use for the hole too.

Like Sue and the Saucy Walker dolls she emulates, this poppet in pink can walk.  I actually can work this mechanism (remember that I could not with my old Saucy), though once again I can't photograph it to suit my liking.  Basically you gently swing one leg back and the other pops forward.  Repeat, repeat, repeat until you get sick of making your doll walk.  Simple, eh wot?  Now she needs a name!

Despite the fact that I wasn't able to definitively name a maker of any of these dolls, I think this was a fair trade.  Mama's cousin got some family relics, and I got some nice vintage stuff that I mightn't have found anywhere else.  Sweet Sue is easy to find, but one in good shape without any cracked joints or torn-up clothes is more expensive than this pretty little raven can afford at the moment.  As for Mei and the as-of-yet-unnamed Saucy clone, I don't know where I'd have found another, at least as nicely dressed as these are.  The hole in the clone doll's skirt is a pain in the posterior, but like I said above I can hide it.  So I'm happy with what I've got, and I hope Mama's cousin is too.  My mother is also quite happy, especially with Mei and her cheery little face.  Now I have to get on the stick and photograph my great aunt's dolls, which as I said earlier will take quite a bit of time and effort.  To quote the great Louis Armstrong, there's so little time and so much to do.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987