Let's talk about Marta: Part Two

In Part One I told you all about why the doll that became Marta was purchased. This post is going to be all about how I finished my Felicity and where the name Marta comes from. So let's jump right in!


Last time I left you with this picture:

A Felicity doll who would shortly become Marta. She had a whole list of things wrong with her. She was missing part of her right thumb, her body had been bleached at some point, she was (and still is) missing a few eyelashes and she had various ink stains. Her hair, while tangled and slightly frizzy at the ends was just what I needed. Of course since I bought her to fix my Felicity her hair is what I concentrated on first!

She got a good brushing straight away, which calmed everything right down!

You can see one very nice pin curl right there!

After her brushing I got down to business taking her wig off. That part was pretty scary for me. This was the first time I removed a wig so I was pretty nervous and man this one did NOT want to come off. It took me a good half hour to remove it but I got it off in one piece and that is all that matters!

Her wig was washed to remove any dirt and then went in a bowl of downy. Just a quick fyi: downy dunking a wig that's off is much easier than one still attached to a doll. Now that I'm a pretty experienced wig gluer I prefer to take wigs off when I'm doing a dunk. After that I whipped up a little hat for her poor bald head and she hung around like this:

I think we are going to call her Pre-Marta for the rest of this post!

For a few weeks while I decided what to do with her!

Her wig was rinsed and hung to dry and then it sat around even longer than she did while I worked up the courage to take my Felicity's wig off. Taking the wig off a doll I just bought? That made me nervous. Taking the wig off my 20 year old childhood best friend? It was almost impossible. But eventually I did it and this is how my beautiful Felicity turned out:

Full Face

Pretty pin curls

Hair down

And in a pony tail

I know in the pictures the wigs look like they are two different colors but they aren't in person. I think the new wig is just so much shinier it makes it look off.

So where did that leave poor Pre-Marta? Well originally I was just going to sell her again and recoup some of my money. That obviously didn't happen! I have to admit having her sit around my work area in her sad little state did me in and so I decided that I was going to try my hand at a custom doll. But who was I going to make?!

Well while I thought about it I replaced her arm with the missing thumb.

Surgery day!

Ahhhh that is so much better!

And then finally it hit me.

When I was a kid I owned all of the books for the first five dolls. I loved all of them and so many of the story-lines hit me hard. The children working in the factories in Samantha's stories, Ben running away to fight for the colonists in Felicity's and when she got Penny back, the worm scene from Meet Addy and how they had to leave her baby sister behind and the moment Molly's father came home from the war all stuck with me. Those books sparked my love for history! I think the one that stuck with me the most though was the death of Marta.

Googled picture of Marta

In Meet Kirsten Marta is Kirsten's best friend on the boat from Sweden. You can read more about her here. The girls are separated once but they find each other again on the way to Minnesota in one of my very favorite scenes!

Another googled picture!

But poor Marta never makes it to Minnesota and she never gets to pick her apples. She catches cholera on a riverboat and dies. The scene where Kirsten finds out about her friend's death still makes me teary!  As a child I was just as devastated as Kirsten!

While Kirsten does make another best friend when she reaches Minnesota AG never made a doll of  her. The only proper AG doll for Singing Bird in existence right now is Kaya and I really just want my Kaya to be herself. I'm hoping that someday I'll find a good doll to make Singing Bird with but it hasn't happened yet! So I decided I was going to make Marta live again!

And this is where Part Two is going to end! I know I'm rattling so much, but I'm going to try and get the last part of Marta's journey finished before Thanksgiving because after we should be getting a new doll in the house and I'm going to want to focus on her! So excited guys!! Thanks for sticking with me and stay tuned!