Today was the first sunny day we’ve had since Tuesday so I took advantage of it to let the next two spa victims, I mean customers, dry their hair in the sun.

First, an update on Jacqui, Jilly and Lee.

Jacqui is all finished and redressed. I haven’t photographed her again yet because she looks pretty much the same. I’m still thinking about whether to try to do anything else with her frizzy hair. I might make her a new pair of stockings at a later date too as hers are a little faded. They were made out of an old pair of tights I had and I am pretty sure I have some other old pairs I could make new ones with, or knitting her some would also be an option. As Jacqui’s cloth legs are so long she’s probably always going to wear coloured stockings of some kind.

Jilly is all done too, she was very easy. The thing that took the longest was getting her dry after I washed her body. I needed to re-sew a button on her matinée jacket but apart from that she didn’t need anything done.Her outfit was knitted by me from a couple of balls of baby wool I had left over from some other project. For those of you interested in doll marks Jill has “Union Toy-Taiwan” on the back of her neck. This suggests to me that she was made prior to 1990 but I don’t know a lot about Taiwanese doll manufacturing. I do know that a lot of Barbie dolls were made in Taiwan from 1967-87 so after that time doll production in Taiwan may not have been on such a large scale. Anyone who knows more about this subject please feel free to join the conversation.

Lee is all finished too and her hair came out quite well. I’m very pleased with it as I spent a lot of time combing out the tangles. Lee has a doll mark too just a simple “HKTC” so she was made in Hong Kong but other than that I don’t know. A huge number of dolls were made in Hong Kong in the 1960s but not so much now I think. Here is Lee. Her outfit is something I bought for her at a market.

Elizabeth and Valerie were the next dolls to get their hair done. Both have problematic hair. Valerie’s is very frizzy around the ends and I spent a lot of time combing it out the night before I washed it. Unlike Jacqui Valerie has plenty of hair so when I found that she still had some frizz I decided I could risk cutting a little bit off to tidy it up a bit.

Elizabeth had her hair in a little plait and when I undid it I found out why she looks so sad. Most of her head is as bald as a billiard ball. Here is Elizabeth encased in the plastic bag she wore while I washed her hair. This was to keep her body dry.

I’m having all sorts of problems trying to redo her hair so that the bald part doesn’t show and think that her fringe may have been a home styled job as it just doesn’t sit right. I’m going to have to have another go at it on Sunday I think.I hope I’ll be able to show you the end results of Cloth Doll Spa Week then.