Hitty's Sitting Room

It took awhile, but I finally got Hitty's sitting room constructed and furnished. I think "sitting room" is a good name for it, as it has many places to sit! All of the furniture, except for the little bench and the round table, were constructed from Gail Wilson kits. Rachel Field and Dorothy Lathrop found several pieces of furniture for the original Hitty, including a wooden settle bench. The original was stained wood; my rendition is painted. The seat lifts to reveal storage space.
















In the book, Hitty is shown sitting at a slant-top desk wearing her Quaker garb. The desk in the photo was made from a GW kit. I scratch-built the little bench, copying the bench in the Hitty illustration. The large book on the desk is Hitty's journal, in which she recorded her memories of her adventures. On the ledge is a little mug with "Hitty" written on it, as well as a seashell. At the right on the ledge is an inkwell made of cranberry glass. According to the Greater Cranberry Historical Society, Rachel Field used the home of William P. Preble and his wife Abigail, located on Greater Cranberry Island, for inspiration when writing about the home of the fictional Preble family in Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. There is a green feather in the inkwell, similar to the one that Hitty used in writing her memoirs. The sailing ship on the wall above the desk commemorates Hitty's sea voyages. The little bench with Papa and Mama Bear was made from a Gail Wilson kit. They have no historical connection to Hitty, but the bench fit nicely in that back corner and I'm sure that Hitty appreciates their company. The top shelf also has a pottery jar in which to store Vermont maple syrup. As Hitty lived in the nearby state of Maine, I'm sure she was an afficionado of Vermont's famous syrup.

This is Hitty's seashell collection, housed in a shadow box that I scratch built. There is nothing in the book about Hitty gathering seashells, but I'm sure she would like this collection as a remembrance of her adventures at sea.  Some of these shells are only 1/4 inch long.  I bought the assortment online several years ago, and now do not recall the name of that website.

The bookcase to the left of the fireplace holds many of Hitty's pieces of china and pottery. On the top two shelves sits pieces of her pink flowered tea set. The tea pot and another cup and saucer are on the round table on the right side of the room.

I built the fireplace unit and the two bookcases that flank it from scratch, mostly using 1/8" basswood. The moldings came from Northeastern Scale Model Company, which has wonderful things for building dollhouses and other structures. The cobalt blue tiles are real ceramic tiles, 3/8" square. I made the fireplace opening so that the tiles would fit. The inside of the fireplace is lined with faux bricks, made from a kit. A template of the brick shapes was applied to the walls of the firebox, then a mixture of brick-colored Plaster of Paris applied in a thin layer over the template. When the template was removed, the brick shapes remained in the walls and floor of the firebox. It took me a couple of tries to get it right! I'm looking for a set of andirons to fit the fireplace, so that I can lay a few logs ready to keep Hitty warm. I'm also planning on filling the basket in front of the fireplace with Hitty-size logs.

The original of the painting above the mantel was done by Grandma Moses for inclusion in her 1961 book, The Grandma Moses Story Book for Boys and Girls. The last chapter in that book is an excerpt from Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, telling the story of Hitty being purchased by the Old Gentleman for his friend, the lady who ran the antique shop in New York. The title of the painting is "Sold at Auction."

The two chairs on the right side of the room are from Gail Wilson kits. Instead of using the fabric that came with the wing chair kit, I selected a tan flowered stripe from my stash, because I like the look of striped fabric on upholstered pieces. I did the chair three years ago and had forgotten about the fabric on it when I went to pick the fabric for the walls. Thus, it is serendipity that the walls and wing chair match.

One of the pieces that Rachel Field and Dorothy Lathrop found for the original Hitty was a tilt-top table, so I built one for my Hitty sitting room. The book lying on the table is a miniature version of Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, complete with authentic dust jacket. The flowers in the vase are similar to those that appear with Hitty in her daguerrotype.

This shows the underside of the tilt-top table, including the mechanism that allows it to tilt up and down. The post of the table began life as a part for a dollhouse railing; the rest of the table I built from scratch. The block on the top of the table is connected to the two cleats on the underside of the table top by a dowel (actually a toothpick) running through the parts, which allows the block to rotate. The little latch at the top rotates over the block when the tabletop is down, locking it in place so that it won't tilt accidentally.

In Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, Hitty and Clarissa Pryce suffer a misadventure when they sneak to hear Adelina Patti, who was a real-life concert singer nearly as famous in her day as Jenny Lind. The painting on the wall above the slat-back chair is a portrait of the real-life Adelina Patti. I made the frame from miniature picture frame molding sold by Northeastern Scale Lumber Company.

The original Hitty, who now lives in the Stockbridge, MA Public Library, has a painting of flowers in a rustic wood frame. I downloaded an image of that painting, restored it and made a rustic frame for it. So my Hittys have the same painting on the wall as the original Hitty has.

The bookcase to the right of the fireplace has a few additional pottery pieces and a basket--not sweetgrass, alas! The doll's doll on the bottom shelf is one that my daughter had for her dollhouse collection as a child. On the second shelf are three apothecary jars filled with candy, peppermint stars, red licorice sticks, and candy canes. There are several books from Esther Robertson, as well as a miniature copy of A Christmas Carol. In Hitty, she is rescued by Charles Dickens, so it is fitting that she'd have a copy of one of his books. There is also a small volume containing a poem written by Rachel Field, titled "A Valentine for Old Dolls." This is Hitty's favorite, as she is sure that Miss Field wrote the poem for her.

A VALENTINE FOR OLD DOLLS

by

Rachel Field

Let others sing of cooing doves,
of beating hearts and new-found loves,
These my poor rhymes shall tell the graces
Of china, wax or wooden faces;
The charm of curls or painted braids,
Oh, sweet, perennially cheerful maids.
Your smiles shall last though nations fall,
And the young hands that dressed you all
In flowered flounce and ribbons gay,
Long since to dust be laid away.
Your years you wear like faint perfume
of rose leaves in a quiet room,
When winter at the threshold knocks;
Like some old tune a music-box
tinkles as soft as phantom rain
Falling beyond a window pane.
And so, where'er you be to-day-
On parlor shelf; packed snug away
In attic camphor-still I'll praise
Your stiff-set limbs, your timeless gaze,
Knowing full well when I am gone

Thus you will sit and thus smile on.

Hitty's Bedroom

Going in reverse order, this is the first entry for my blog about my dolls. I finished constructing the roombox for my Hitty's bedroom, and wanted a place to post pictures of it and described it.

The original Hitty was a 6-1/4" peg wooden doll bought from an antique shop by Rachel Field and Dorothy Lathrop in the 1920's. They then collaborated on a story of Hitty's life, beginning from the time when she was first carved up until her sojourn in the antique shop. In the story, which of course is fiction, Hitty has many marvelous adventures and mishaps, sharing the worlds of several little (and not-so-little) girls. The book, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, was awarded the John Newbery Medal in 1930. The original Hitty now resides in the Sturbridge, MA library, together with some of her actual possessions.

I have three Hitty dolls, named Faith, Hope, and Charity. Hitty Faith is a DRC-Hittykins resin pegged doll, who I think comes the closest to looking like the original Hitty of any doll I've seen. Faith has several dresses copied from the Lathrop illustrations. Hitty Hope is a resin doll by Susan Sirkis. Hope is presently rather naked (as in totally), but eventually she will be dressed as a bride in a dress replicating that made by the Larraby sisters. Finally, Hitty Charity is a still-to-be-put-together Gail Wilson kit. She will be dressed in replicas of the illustration in the Wells/Jeffers rewrite of Hitty. Faith, Hope and Charity all plan to share the space in the Hitty roomboxes. The bedroom is shown below. There will soon be a sitting room.

Here's Hitty's bedroom. Some of the furnishings were made with Gail Wilson kits (available at gailwilsondesigns.com). I made the roombox out of 1/2" foamcore board. The box is 20" wide, 12" high and 12" deep. The upper walls are covered in a Gail Wilson print fabric, the lower walls in miniature wood bead board, and the floors covered in dollhouse real random-width wood flooring, which I stained Colonial brown. Originally, I planned on building a wood cabinet to hold this and two other foamcore roomboxes for Hitty. However, the roomboxes ended up on open shelving, so I finished the outside with miniature clapboard siding, painted slate gray.

The four-poster bed is a GW kit. I made two pillows, rather than one. The first quilt that I made for it, using the fabrics that came in the kit, was a disaster. So the quilt on the bed was made with fabrics from my stash. Both the original Hitty and the Hitty in Field's book had a four-poster bed. The little whale rug at the foot of the bed is an exact copy of the original Hitty's whale rug (but probably not the same size). I downloaded a photo of the original whale rug from the Sturbridge Library website, resized and straighten the image, and then printed it out on fabric to use as a template for punch-needling the rug. The colors are the same as those in the photo of the original rug.

The original Hitty had her own little peg-wooden doll. My Hitty's peg-wooden, seen in the previous photo, is another GW kit, together with the little pouting chair in which she sits and the little bed against the wall. When I opened the kit, I was dismayed to find that the little doll was just a blank, which I needed to carve, peg together and paint. I managed that, but thank goodness the head is left as a sphere! The little peg-wooden is just 2" tall. In the book, Hitty went on a sea voyage and one of the sailors made her a little blue trunk in which to put her possessions. I made the little trunk from scratch. It was one of my first endeavors, and took much trial and error.

The original Hitty's summer quilt was a cotton made in a variation of the log cabin pattern. The little quilt on the wall in my Hitty's bedroom is a GW kit.  The little sampler on the back wall says "Bless this house". It is a kit from HiJinx (www.hijinx.co.nz), and comes complete with the frame to put together. The original Hitty had a winter quilt made of dark-colored hexagons. I made a grandmother's flower garden quilt out of pastel pinks and lavenders instead. It rests on a quilt rack built from scratch.

The little washstand was built from scratch and has a working drawer. The towel hanging from the towel rod has hemstitching and lace, which is just barely visible in the photo.

The sewing table next to the bed also was scratch-built and has a working drawer. Right now the drawer holds Hitty's jewelry: a pearl necklace and a spare coral bead necklace. The spoolstand on the sewing table, the ladderback chair, and the Shaker sewing box are all from GW kits, as is the sampler on the wall. The batiste curtains are hung on real brass curtain rods that were made for 1:12 dollhouses, but work well here. The window is an actual working window, so that Hitty can occasionally get a breath of fresh air.

Well, that is Hitty's bedroom thus far. I keep rearranging the furniture, and am considering finding things to put on the side walls to the back of the windows. I'm not sure that the room needs more things on the wall, though. I don't want the room to get too cluttered looking. From what they tell me, Hitty Faith, Hope and Charity all value simplicity. They appear to be Transcendentalists, emulating Thoreau.