I know, she may not be the most beautiful doll but I love her.  She was my Sally doll when I was a little girl.  Since I grew up she was played with, put to bed, dressed in whatever may have been laying around and loved by my niece Rachel (now 17) and my other niece Ruth (now 10) and of course she has been Emma’s for the last three years.

She was a new dolly a long time ago (I’m 36) and after so much love and playing, she was looking…  well, a little floppy.  I had been wondering whether to try fixing her (she is old and precious and I was worried about my qualifications as a vintage doll surgeon) but luckily for me, my mum volunteered for the job instead.  I use the term “volunteered” rather loosely, of course - thanks mum! 

Here she is in the “before” shot - I’m not sure how well you can see it, but her neck and the tops of her arms and legs had no stuffing left.  It was all so compacted and old, leaving her very floppy.  She also was in need of a good bath.

I had to give my mum a good talking to for not taking progress shots (not even a before shot!) when she recently fixed up my 43 year old brother’s old, old, ratty teddy - who now looks a million bucks, and probably would fetch a decent part of that on eBay, not that we would, no he’s an antique teddy and I have already put dibs on him in the will.  Teddy now looks so amazing and I will definitely get a picture here soon.

Back to Sally… here she is with all her insides out.  My mum knew I wanted to blog this so she dutifully took a “during” pic for me and emailed it to me with this cute message:

She was soon clean, quite a bit plumper and softer and all stitched up again and home to her loving little mummy, Emma. Mum even brushed her hair.

I do love my old Sally doll - she may be a tiny bit ugly looking (but in a cute way, right?) and I do wish she would shut her mouth every now and then (her thumb goes in there) but she is almost as old as me and has been played with by a succession of little girls in our family and that counts for a lot.

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tags: childhood, children, doll, doll hospital, kids, memories, old, vintage