Hitty's Dresses, By the Book

2004 is all about Hitty and her friends.  First, going in reverse chronological order, there are six postings in May about the original Hitty doll and her comrades.  Then, there are two posts about the Hittys' two-room mansion, consisting of a bedroom and a sitting room.  This first posting below is about the original Hitty.  

In Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, Dorothy Lathrop drew the delightful illustrations. Many of the illustrations depict Hitty in dresses that are described in the story written by Rachel Field. I have been reproducing those dresses as closely as I'm able. When I first wrote this posting, I was about half way through. I just finished the last of the dresses, and have added photos of them further down.

In the story, Hitty's first dress is sewn by Phoebe Preble. Phoebe's mother would not let poor Phoebe play with the doll until she was decently clothed:

Phoebe's mother had decided that I was not to be played with until properly clothed. Phoebe was not a child who took readily to sewing, but her mother was firm, so presently out came needles and thread, thimbles and piece-bag, and I was being measured for my first outfit. It was to be of buff calico strewn with small red flowers, and I thought it was very fine indeed.

The cover of the 1998 paperback edition of Hitty shows Dorothy Lathrop's illustration of the dress that Phoebe Preble made. I made an exact copy of the dress by first scanning in the cover illustration. I then cropped one of the little flower clusters, straightened the image, and then duplicated it in a diagonal pattern. The background color of the fabric was also taken from the cover illustration. I then printed the image on a fine batiste ironed onto freezer paper.

The Hitty in the photographs is Hitty Faith, who is a DRC Hittykin resin doll, made by DeAnn Cote. Hitty Faith was my first Hitty, and I think she comes closest to looking like the first Hitty of all I've seen. Hitty's necklace is real coral beads, strung on elastic, so that it can be removed. The dress closes in back with loops and three 1/8" buttons.

In Hitty, Phoebe Preble also made her doll a pair of pantaloons and a chemise, with her name embroidered on it. Hitty describes how she came by her name:

At first, I was christened Mehitabel, but Phoebe was far too impatient to use so many syllables, and presently I had become Hitty to the whole household. Indeed, it was Mrs. Preble's suggestion that these five letters were worked carefully in little red cross-stitch characters upon my chemise.

 "There, said Phoebe's mother when the last one was done, "now whatever happens to her she can always be sure of her name."

Hitty's chemise is shown in several illustrations, including one in which she is burrowing in her trunk. In trying to reproduce the chemise and pantaloons, I quickly noticed that there were no closures on the chemise, either in front or in back. There is a button at the waist, so presumably the petticoat was separate. I assume that the chemise depicted was pulled on over the head. That might have worked for an illustration doll, but it didn't work for a real doll. I found that a neckline big enough to go over Hitty's head also tended to slip off her shoulders. So my Hitty's chemise is buttoned up the back, and the petticoat is attached to the chemise. The fabric is cotton voile, and the lace is French cotton val.

After having been lost by Phoebe Preble on a sea voyage, Hitty was purchased as a birthday gift for 4-year-old Little Thankful. The dress that Phoebe had made was long gone, but Hitty still had her chemise, and Little Thankful's mother made Hitty a new dress:

Little Thankful's mother was better at hymns and Bible lessons than dressing dolls. However, I was so glad to feel decent cloth upon my back again that I was in no mood to insist upon the latest fashions. She made me a rather voluminous dress of cotton print, in a far from gaudy pattern. It nearly covered my painted feet, and the ruffle about my neck practically hid my coral beads. But these were small matters. I was clean and comfortable and I belonged to a little girl again.

There is no mention in the book of the colors in the print fabric that Little Thankful's mother used, so I made the solid stripes brown and the little flowers in shades of peach. This is another print that I generated using Adobe Photo Elements, and then printed on batiste. The brown color actually is quite a bit darker than it appears in the photos below.

I made the collar of cotton voile, with tiny loops of tatting for the edging. As there was no illustration of the dress front to limit me, I put the stripes on the bodice front on the diagonal.

Little Thankful was not very thankful to have Hitty when she saw the elegant china dolls that other girls had at a party. Thankful stuffed Hitty down behind the cushions of the horsehair sofa, where Hitty remained for several years. After being discovered, Hitty soon became the doll of Clarissa Pryce, a little Quaker girl. Clarissa herself made Hitty two dresses. Hitty's everyday dress was made of brown sprigs on buff calico. There is no illustration of this dress, so I did some research on the clothing that Quaker girls might have worn in the mid-1800's. I designed the print with brown sprigs on a buff background, and printed the design onto batiste. The dress is plain, with no embellishment, as befitting a Quaker girl. I made a Quaker pinafore to go with the dress, as well as a plain white cap.

The second dress that Clarissa made for Hitty was for Sunday best. It was "a pearl-gray silk, made in true Quaker fashion, with a fine white fichu crossed in front, lawn cap, and all, for First Day, as the Pryces called Sunday."

To make the dress, I dyed a piece of silk broadcloth with Pearl Gray Rit dye. Like the everyday dress, the gray silk dress was plain, with long straight sleeves and no embellishments. The white fichu is made of cotton voile, with a tiny ruffle as depicted in the illustration. In addition to a white cap made of voile, I constructed a straw bonnet for Hitty, made in the Quaker style.



















Here's one more photograph of Hitty in her Quaker dress. She is wearing her white cap, the ruffle of which is peaking out from under her straw Quaker bonnet, which itself is tied with a large silk bow. At least, the bow is large on Hitty!



Hitty stayed with Clarissa until after the Civil War. When Clarissa went away to boarding school, Hitty 'went into camphor,' stored away in the attic with moth balls. The box in which Hitty was stored was sent to some New York cousins, where after a length of two years, Hitty was found by Miss Milly Pinch, the household seamstress. To prove her ability to sew fancy clothes, Miss Pinch made a wonderous wardrobe for Hitty. One of the dresses was a dancing dress made of silk. Hitty was soon appropriated by Isabella, an 8-year-old, who took Hitty with her to dance classes. Hitty tried to join in, but as her legs were pegged, they couldn't move independent of each other. As Hitty said "My spirit was willing, but my pegs were not."

I found that making the dancing dress from silk fabric was formidable. Silk drapes wonderfully, but when gathered, it doesn't fall into graceful Hitty-size folds. Instead, it tends to stand out like an umbrella. So I opted to make the dancing dress from sheer cotton voile. However, the ruching at the neckline and hemline is made from silk ribbon, as is the pink sash around her waist.


Another ensemble made by Miss Pinch is described in detail in the book:

How is it possible for my poor pen to do justice to my new attire--to the watered-silk dress with draped skirt, fitted waist, and innumerable bows? How can I describe the blue velvet pelisse embroidered with garlands no bigger than pinheads? How tell of the little feathered hat and the muff of white eiderdown?

Hitty is wearing this ensemble when she falls from Isabella's grasp and tumbles to the ground at the feet of Charles Dickens. Mr. Dickens rescues Hitty, a memorable event for Isabella.

This outfit was the most challenging of all to try to construct. Elsewhere in the book the dress is described as made of blue silk, so I dyed a piece of lightweight taffeta a very light shade of evening blue. The skirt is slightly fuller in the back than the front and has two rows of ecru braid at the hem. Above those are multitudes of ecru silk bows. Only the lower portion of the skirt is shown in the book's illustration, so I designed the bodice myself. It does have a fitted waist, as well as a square neckline and short sleeves. I did not embellish the bodice, as I didn't want extra bulk under the pelisse.

The pelisse is made of cotton velveteen, dyed a darker shade of evening blue. The sleeves and hem are edged with black cotton val lace, and all the edges of the pelisse are bordered with a loopy rayon braid. The garlands are composed of bullion-stitch pink roses and lazy-daisy green leaves. I had to make a few modifications to the sleeve and pocket, because of the nature of the materials I was working with. The little hat is made from the same silk as the dress and does indeed have a blue feather. The muff, rather than made of eiderdown, is made of a piece of faux fur. I had to shave the pile down considerably to make it Hitty scale.



The last dress that is illustrated in the book was made by Miss Pamela Worthington, who rescued Hitty from life as a pincushion doll and made her a dress of sprigged challis, such as Miss Pamela herself had worn as a child. Eventually, still wearing this dress, Hitty is bought at auction by the old gentleman, and goes to live in Miss Hunter's antique shop, where she writes her memoirs.

My 1930's hardcover edition of Hitty has a color illustration of this dress. I used the illustration to reconstruct the fabric in Photoshop, and then printed the fabric image onto cotton batiste. In addition to the color illustration, the book has two other illustrations showing this dress, and in each, the dress is drawn slightly differently. My version is an adaptation of all three.

These are all of the dresses in the illustrations of Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, except for one, which is the glorious bride's dress that Hitty wears at the Cotton Exposition. I know that once I make that dress, I will never want to take it off of my little Hitty. So rather than make the bride's dress for Hitty Faith, who has a plentitude of dresses already, I bought a Hitty made by Susan Sirkis to dress especially as the bride. That dress still needs much planning and thought, but for now, the dresses for Hitty Faith, reconstructing the illustrations in the original version of Hitty, are done.

Hitty According to Gail Wilson

Soon after I bought my first Hitty, I discovered the Hitty-size furniture on Gail Wilson's website (www.gailwilsondesigns.com). Many of the pieces of furniture and accessories in my Hitty's bedroom and sitting room are made from GW kits. Gail also sells her version of Hitty, ready-made and in kit form. The original Hitty was carved of wood, while the GW Hitty has molded paper mache head, arms and legs with a cloth body. At first, I wasn't sure that a non-wood doll could truly be a Hitty. But then I realized that my other Hittys were all made of resin, which makes them non-wood dolls. So, I bought a GW Hitty kit and gathered together my courage to make a 6-1/2" doll.

This is the GW Hitty that I made. She is a pudgy little thing, more childlike that the original Hitty. She is named Hitty Charity. (There is also a Hitty Hope, as yet unclothed).

Her petticoat and pantaloons are made of cotton voile, trimmed with cotton val lace. I used simple drawstring closures for both the undergarments, so that I could loosen the strings and let them ride a little below her waist if need be.

Also in this picture are the cotton batiste nightgown and nightcap, both made from a GW pattern.

Here is Hitty Charity in the dress made from the fabric included in the Hitty doll kit. She also has a pinafore, both garments being edged with a crochet-type lace. The instructions had the option of embroidering "Hitty" on the bib of the pinafore, but obviously I chose to keep the bib plain.

Also in the picture is Hitty Charity's cape, made of thin cotton flannel. I wanted a forest green flannel, but couldn't find any in the fabric stores, so I dyed it. While I was at it, I also dye a piece of cotton batiste with which to line the hood and collar. I had a piece of narrow jacquard ribbon with a touch of green in the design. I thought it made a good trim for the cape, giving it a Tyrolean flavor.

Hitty Charity is wearing what I think of as a pioneer girl's outfit in this picture. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but the dress fabric is a little cream-on-tan print. Hitty Charity has a pioneer bonnet made of the same fabric. To go over her dress there is a navy-and-tan checked apron, which buttons in the back.

On the dress form is a blue-on-white print dress, which the pattern identifies as one of Hitty's 'best dresses.' This is the style of dress worn by Miss Columbia, a late 1800's cloth doll.

In the GW pattern, this dress was described as a Quaker outfit, designed to be made in gray fabric. I made it decidedly non-Quakerish by using dark red fabric. In the pattern, the dress was two pieces, a blouse and skirt, with the white fichu tucked into the waistband of the skirt. I made the dress all one piece, and modified the fichu so that it tied around in the back. Both are ways that women in the early 1800's wore fichus. Hitty Charity is wearing a Quaker cap, which basically is like the caps worn by women of that time period. At her feet is a Quaker bonnet, with silk ribbon ties and a ruffle to protect her neck.

In this photo, Hitty Charity is wearing a very simple dress, made of a brown-on-tan cotton print. The dress has a hand-dyed brown silk sash as an accent.










In this picture, Hitty Charity is wearing a dusty pink print dress. I dyed the sash to match the darker shade of pink in the print. It took several tries to get the right color! Also, Hitty has a pink bonnet that she can wear with her dress, which has its own hat box. When I made the hat box, I got the lid a little tight. It comes off, but it takes a lot of doing.

Here Hitty Charity is wearing a brown cardigan sweater that goes so nicely with her brown-on-tan print dress. The sweater was knit by my friend Edna. It has real buttons and buttonholes, as well as the tiniest of ribbings. It certainly will keep Hitty Charity warm in the winter.




And finally, here is Hitty Charity wearing her blue shawl with a matching cap, also knit by Edna. The cap has a tiny eyelet pattern worked around the edge.

I had finished all these dresses and finally declared Hitty Charity's wardrobe complete. Then I learned that Gail Wilson had published two new patterns for Hitty. One is an early 1800's dress, in the style of Jane Austen. The other is a style often worn by dolls in the mid-1800's, such as the Izannah Walker dolls. I can hear Hitty Charity saying that she has absolutely nothing to wear and needs some new dresses!

A Few Weeks Later  . . .

Here is Hitty Charity in her new Jane Austen style dress and bonnet.  The dress is made from white batiste, with a tuck and lace at the wrists, tucks near the hem and a ruffle of lace at the neck.  The sash is made of French blue silk satin ribbon, with a large bow in the back.  This style of dress was popular in the early 1800's, the era depicted in the Jane Austen novels.  

The bonnet is also typical of that era, with a large brim and Hitty's curls showing in the back.  The same ribbon in a narrower size trims the bonnet.

And here is Hitty Charity in a dress typical of mid-19th century doll dresses, like that frequently worn by dolls made by Izannah Walker.   It has a round yoke with a bound neckline.  The bell sleeves gather onto the yoke, as does the body of the dress.  The apron has a printed pattern simulating embroidered doll aprons of that same era, which were often seen in brown, such as this one, or red.  Hopefully, Hitty Charity is satisfied with the state of her wardrobe.  Her sister, Hitty Hope, has not a stitch to wear and is beginning to feel slighted.  Sibling rivalry exists even in the doll world.

Prudence: Hitty Dressed as a Bride

In Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, midway through the story Hitty travels to New Orleans, where she ends up in the possession of two elderly genteel ladies, Miss Hortense and Miss Annette.  They came from an old, distinguished family and had fallen on hard times after the Civil War.  The ladies had been given the challenge of dressing Hitty to be displayed at the Cotton Exposition.  After much deliberation, they decided to use an old family wedding handkerchief to make Hitty a bridal gown.

When I was making the outfits for my first Hitty, Faith, replicating the clothes in the illustration of the original book, I first thought I would make the bridal gown for her.  I came to realize, though, that the bridal gown was so elaborate and would be so intricate to make that I would never want to take it off the doll.  Consequently, I decided to buy a doll specifically to wear the bridal gown.  The doll I choose was one made by Susan Sirkis, and is shown here in all her unadorned glory. She is almost an inch taller than the traditional Hitty, which I thought would be an advantage in making the bridal gown.  I named her Prudence, as I hoped she would be prudent in marrying.

I knew that the very full skirt of the bridal dress would require some support underneath, so I first made Prudence a hoop skirt.  I used thin hat wire for the hoops.  The vertical bands and waistband were made from 1/4" twill tape.




Next, Prudence would need a petticoat, to smooth out the ridges the hoop skirt wires would make.  I made the petticoat of white cotton batiste, adding a self-fabric ruffle around the bottom.








Below is the illustration of Hitty dressed as a bride from the original book and a photo of the bridal gown that I made:

The dress was made from a voile-weight cotton from Farmhouse Fabrics, called Swiss muslin, and from embroidered cotton tulle that I bought at the Little Trimmings website.  The silk tulle for the veil also came from Little Trimmings.  The paper roses trimming the dress and veil were from Mini-Dolls.

For the ruffles on the underskirt, I cut strips of Swiss muslin and ironed them folded in half.  The folded edge became the bottom of the ruffle.  I then used a 1" scale Perfect Pleater to make the ruffles.  My secret to getting the ruffles to hold their shape was to spray the strips with hair spray before inserting in the Perfect Pleater.  I made a bell-shaped lining and slip stitched the ruffles to it, bottom edge first.  The second row of ruffles overlapped the row underneath, to hide the raw edge of the lower ruffle.  Five such ruffles formed the underskirt.  The tulle of the lace is cotton, while the embroidery was done with rayon thread, giving the lace a little shimmer.

The sleeves are made from the same lace as the overskirt.  The sleeves are bell-shaped, with the back of the sleeve a little longer than the front.  The bodice is covered with a different version of embroidered cotton tulle.  The ruffle at the top of the bodice is 1/8" wide, made of Swiss muslin folded double.  The necklace is 2 mm seed pearls, purchased on the Gail Wilson website.  I can think of nothing else to write, except that it took three tries to get the bodice to come to a nice point at the center front.  I wasn't going to mess up anything on this dress!


So this is the end of my Hitty project.  Originally, it was going to be one doll and a room or two.  It ended up being six dolls, two rooms, and a ton of clothes.  I keep thinking up new projects, the number of which feels overwhelming.  I've been working lately on bringing some of my doll projects to completion, which feels wonderful!  There is, however, one last thing for Hitty not yet done.  I still need to find some twigs to put in the basket by the fireplace in the sitting room.  But I think I might leave that to do in 2016.

Hitty, the Revised Edition

Rachel Field's and Dorothy Lathrop's book, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, was originally published in 1929.  In the 1990's, the story began receiving criticism for not being politically correct, particularly in how former slaves were portrayed.  Other books were similarly criticized, especially Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.  Some critics suggested that it is inappropriate for children today to read these books.  I would argue that all books reflect the values and beliefs of the time in which they were written, and that people -- children and adults alike -- can learn much about those times by reading the books that were written in them.

In light of the criticisms, Rosemary Wells wrote a revised version of Hitty, which was published in 1999.  She shortened the length of the book by more than half and completely change the story line in the second half of the book.  The revised version was published as a large format picture book, one that included many colored illustrations drawn by Susan Jefffers.  The Hitty pictured in the illustrations by Dorothy Lathrop very closely resembled the real-life Hitty doll that Rachel Field and Dorothy Lathrop shared.  The Hitty that Susan Jeffers drew was a much younger, more childlike version.  In the first half of the revised version, the descriptions and illustrations of Hitty's clothing remained close to that in the original book.  On the other hand, in the second half, the clothing is unlike anything in the original book.

The first Hitty that I bought was a resin version made by DeAnn Cote, called Hittykins.  DeAnn later made a resin version of the doll in the revised edition, as illustrated by Susan Jeffers, which was then called Hittykins 2.  Planning on making the dresses in Susan Jeffers' illustrations, I bought a Hittykins 2.  She appears in the photo at the left.  Several years have passed since I bought the revised Hitty, whom I named Hitty Hope.  This year, I finally started replicating the outfits in the revised Hitty.  So here they are!

Here is Hitty Hope in her underthings.  Both the chemise and pantaloons are made from Swiss batiste, with an edging of Swiss embroidery.  I threaded two strands of pink embroidery floss through the entredeux on the edging, to simulate the trim shown in the illustration.

In the original book, the child Phoebe Preble sewed Hitty's first dress and underthings.  In the revised edition, it is Phoebe's mother who does the sewing.  This is the dress that Phoebe's mother made for Hitty.  I made the printed fabric by first drawing a block of yellow dots on a red background in Microsoft Word, using the circle template in the drawing tools.  I then copied the block of 4 x 4 dots into Photoshop, miniaturized it, copied the block enough times to get a row that was 12" wide, and finally copied that row enough times to get an image that was 12 x 15".  I printed the image on a piece of batiste ironed onto freezer paper, using my lovely new wide-format printer, and voila! I had the fabric for Hitty's first dress.  The trim at the bottom of the skirt is narrow soutache.  The trim around the yoke is piping that I made from silk charmeuse.  I dyed the silk for the piping and the silk ribbon for the sash, using good old Rit dye.  The cap is made from white batiste, with cotton lace for the trim.  I left the ties longer than in the illustration, as I had enough problems tying a bow that little.

In another illustration, Hitty is shown wearing the Preble dress with a yellow bonnet and green sprigged shawl.  I made the print for the shawl in Microsoft Word.  I found an illustration of a fabric that had green sprigs online, copied one of those sprigs into Word, miniaturized it, and then copy-and-pasted it into the pattern seen in the shawl.  The green lines at the border of the shawl were made with the drawing tools in Word.  I printed the shawl onto a piece of cotton voile, thinking that the very sheer, thin voile would drape nicely over Hitty's shoulders.

Here is a closeup of Hitty's yellow bonnet.  I made the pattern for the bonnet from regular printer paper, trying it several times to get the size and shape just right.  The bonnet itself is made from wool felt that I bought on Etsy and is trimmed with a length of silk charmeuse bias that I dyed red.  The ribbon in the hat band and bow is silk satin ribbon, dyed yellow to match the trim of the dress.

In the original Hitty, the text mentioned that Hitty had an everyday Quaker dress, but there was no illustration of it.  The revised version provided the illustration.  So here is Hitty's everyday dress appropriate for a little Quaker doll.  I made the print for this dress in the same way as for the Preble dress.  Hitty has a fichu of white batiste with rows of tucks, which took me some experimentation to figure out how to handle the tucks in the back.  She wears the fichu with a white batiste apron and a little demure Quaker cap.  The cap is made from the same pattern as the cap with the Preble dress, but the Quaker cap is trimmed with a fabric ruffle rather than French lace.

In addition to a suitable Quaker dress for everyday wear, in the revised edition Hitty had a Quaker "best dress" for wear to First Day Meetings and on special occasions.  When looking to replicate the Quaker best dress, I faced a dilemma, for there were two distinct versions in the revised book, differing mainly in the style of the bodice.  The illustration above shows my compromise between the two.  My version is made of satin batiste, which has a bit of a sheen to it suitable for a best dress.  The buttons are tiny 2mm seed pearls.  The Quaker bonnet was made in the same fashion as the yellow Preble bonnet, also from wool felt.














This is the dress that appears on the cover of the revised edition.  It appears nowhere on the inside pages.  This is one of my favorites, because I think the color looks so good on Hitty, with her dark hair.  I dyed the fabric for this dress, using satin batiste.  There is a narrow cotton lace at the neckline and wrists, and again the buttons are 2mm seed pearls.



















This is the dress that Hitty wore in the antique shop, in the last chapter of the story.  It is also one of the dresses on which I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out exactly how I was going to accomplish replicating it.  At first I was going to try to find fabric that had incredibly narrow blue stripes on a white background.  Then I decided that the dress was probably supposed to represent a white-on-white fabric, like a dimity, which is the fabric that I ended up using.  The lace yoke is made from val laces that I cut apart just to get the narrow bands of lace dots -- in 3 different sizes.  I never did find a lace that would work for the pointed edging, and ended up using a lace that had rounded points that weren't as wide as those in the illustration.


















The illustration of the back view shows a different color ribbon than that used in the front view.  The ribbon that I used was a closer match to the front view than the back view.  The skirt trim is different in the front and back views, as well.  The front view has 4 ribbon bands; the back view has 2 bands plus lace trim around the bottom.  I went with the back view on that one.  This dress also illustrates some of the differences between an illustration and an actual dress made for a 6-1/2 inch doll.  One difference is that there is no closure at all on the lace yoke, which brings up the question of how was Hitty able to put the dress on?  Another difference is that the ribbon sash in the illustration is very drapeable, even with the double ties.  That just didn't work with the satin ribbon that I used.  I wonder what type of ribbon would make those lovely drapeable double loops on a 6-1/2" doll?















This last dress is the one worn by Hitty to the Cotton Exposition in the revised edition of the book.  It is out-of-order in my listing here, as Hitty wore this dress before the one she wore in the antique shop, described above.  I saved the Cotton Exposition for last partly because it was the last one that I made, but mostly because it was the most elaborate and the most difficult to make.  In the revised edition, the beads on the dress are supposed to be black pearls.  The beads in the illustration are a medium to light shade of gray, which are lighter than black pearls actually would be.  Because black pearls were way out of my price range, I used beads made of hematite.


















Here is a closeup view of the skirt.  While the skirt in the illustration is much wider than the one that I made, by my calculations, the illustration skirt has 8 embroidered flowers around, while the one I made actually had one more, 9 flowers.  My skirt is 12 inches in circumference, and I had difficulty getting all 12 of those inches gathered into Hitty's much smaller waist.  There is no way that I could have added in a greater length of fabric around without resorting to cartridge pleating to gather the waist.  I also simplified the beading a bit.  I tried replicating the beading pattern exactly, but it became too much visually.  The flowers and the pink scallops on the skirt were done on my embroidery machine.

Finally, here is a closeup of the bodice and the headpiece.  The scallops on the bodice and sleeve were all done on the embroidery machine, which does much more even work than I can do by hand.  The beading pattern on the bodice follows the illustration nearly exactly.  The beading pattern in the headpiece is also pretty close to that in the illustration.  However, in the illustration, the beads are gray only around their perimeters, and so appear much lighter against Hitty's dark hair than my hematite beads do.

So that is the tale of Hitty Hope, who wears the clothing shown in the illustrations of the revised edition of Hitty: Her First Hundred Years.

Miss Unity, a Hitty-sized doll

 

UFDC's Miss Unity

The shop on the United Federation of Doll Clubs (UFDC) website had a little doll for sale, named Miss Unity, that was just Hitty's size. She was UFDC's logo doll, made by Robert Tonner.  Every now and again, I'd go look at her and think about buying.  But each time, I'd click the X to close the page.  Five Hitty-size dolls was enough, I thought.  And I was running out of room for displaying dolls of any kind.

Then the Spring 2014 issue of UFDC's Doll News had an article by AnneLise Wilhelmsen, with patterns for four outfits for Miss Unity.  There was also a paper doll by Gael Shults, featuring some of the same outfits.  Immediately I went to the UFDC website to buy Miss Unity.  The patterns were the tipping point.  They were in the style of 1830's clothing, and as the story of Hitty in the original book began in the 1820's, Miss Unity would fit right in with my little Hitty family.  I had been looking at Miss Unity on the UFDC website for several years, and I was lucky to have bought her when I did, for she sold out shortly thereafter.

I made four outfits for my Miss Unity.  Three of the dresses are made with print fabrics.  In the early 1800's, the fabric printing process was greatly improved, and prints became very popular.  I went to the Reproduction Fabrics website to find 1830's appropriate prints that I liked and downloaded swatches.  I then miniaturized the prints in Photoshop, to make them a realistic size for Miss Unity.  I then had to copy-and-paste the swatch enough times to print out on a 12x15" sheet of fabric, which was more than enough for each of the dresses.

Here is the first one.  I love the soft blue of this fabric.  I used cotton batiste for the fabric, to keep it as light as possible for the small size of the doll.   I was amazed at the detail in the patterns.  Oftentimes, patterns for dolls this size have the bodice and sleeves in one piece, to simplify construction.  This pattern had a separate sleeve and separate front and back bodices.  It also had princess seaming on the bodice, so there were side back and side front pattern pieces.  In a princess seam, the two pieces to be joined have different curves, one concave and the other convex, which makes joining them a challenge, especially in the bodice for a 6-1/2" doll.  But who doesn't like a good challenge?

The second dress has a fabric pattern borrowed from Reproduction Fabrics.  I was trying to get a darker background color, but when printing on very light, thin fabrics with a computer printer, there's a limit to how much ink will be absorbed and thus a limit to how dark the fabric will become.  A thicker fabric will absorb more ink and thus can appear considerably darker.  I added a belt to this dress, copying the paper doll green print dress.

The third dress has the most complicated design.  The pattern instructions had the skirt pieced, so that the stripes ran vertically in the upper portion of the skirt, and then alternating diagonals around the bottom portion.  As I was printing the fabric for this dress from a computer, I just did all the piecing in Photoshop.  The sleeves also have a bit of an elaborate design.  The sleeve heads have 4 rows of barrel pleating.  A narrow piece of the stripe is then sewn over the bottom row of the barrel pleats as a trim.

The fourth dress is my own variation of the Doll News pattern, based on a example of an 1830's woman's dress that I found on the Internet.  It has a gathered bodice with a pink silk sash tied around the raised waistline.  The skirt has Swiss embroidered edging with a large tuck above.