Wednesday, November 2, 2011

My Twinn

I found a sweet My Twinn doll on ebay. She was in need of some help and the bidding didn't seem competitive. I put in a low bid at the last minute and to my surprise I actually won her. I thought for sure someone would bid in the last seconds but nope.. So, this is Caitie, she lives here now. My Twinn has over 40 face molds that they use/have used and collectors have given them names to help identify who is who. This one is called Caitie, it seems to suit her.


I fixed her broken neck, reglued her eyelashes back on, washed her hair, cleaned the paint off her face and limbs etc. She was in pretty sad shape, although it was all very easy to fix.

I took this picture before I cleaned her but after I had fixed her neck. Her head was hanging just by the cloth of her body covering. The lighting washed out the paint on her face but she had many spots where she'd been bumped on a wall or furniture and picked up some paint. magic eraser took care of 95% of these. She still has a couple of faint marks on her chin and near her mouth but I'll have another go at those soon.

She arrived in a pair of My Twinn baby underwear, and some velvety blue overalls with snowflakes on them. I drafted up a pants and shirt pattern for her yesterday. I made a muslin of the shirt that turned out nice for pajamas. I will tweak the pattern before I make a daytime shirt. The pants pattern still needs work but I was able to make a pajama pants pattern today. This turned out really well, so now she has a pair of good pajamas and I've got a better foundation for pants.


I wish I could capture her eye color more accurately. They look blue on my computer screen but in real life they are almost violet. She's a very high quality doll. This particular doll is from the time when the dolls were assembled in Denver by artisans. My Twinn has gone under twice, and the first time they were bought out by a company that was in over their head. Production went over to China and quality and customer service were severely lacking from what I've heard. The current owners seem to have a good handle on things and the quality of the dolls is once again very good. I really like how poseable the dolls are, though I wish their arms could bend closer to the elbow like how their knees bend. I guess they had to choose how much cloth to have on the arm because that relates to how much mobility they have. The vinyl goes up to just past the elbow so everything from that point down is stationary though they have motion in their shoulders. The armature inside the body lets the head tilt, bend at the waist, hips, knees etc. even the feet can move a bit.

Thanks for looking!

5 comments:

Char @ Doll Diaries said...

What a beautiful restoration! We featured your site as part of the Doll Diaries Spotlight Sites today - we were showcasing some other doll restorations, too.

Have a great weekend!
Char

Erin said...

Oh, wow! Thank you for looking and sharing my project.

tamara said...

You are so creative!! Do you sell your 23" doll patterns? My sweet neice got a My Twinn for Christmas and I would love to make her a few things :)

Erin said...

Thank you! I don't sell my own drafted patterns at this time, but you may find some out of print patterns on ebay. I have a couple Butterick patterns that a friend sent to me from the late 1990's. They aren't specifically for MyTwinn dolls, but for a 23" cloth doll that you can make with one of the patterns.
look for Butterick 6373, 6799, 3115, and a few others. They are designed by Rachel Wallis. I've sewn one and the fit is good

tamara said...

Great! Thanks!!

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