Ivy May - A Little Raggedy Asylum Doll

I've been reading quite a few different books and accounts about the treatment that women received at insane asylums through the Victorian era, and how that treatment changed as science and medical knowledge grew.

It's still amazing to me how barbaric some of the treatments were. It wasn't that long ago, but the "experts" knew very little about how to treat even the simplest mental conditions. Resorting to horrific procedures that more often than not only made the poor patients worse, and gave them further problems to deal with.

The book Women Of The Asylum by Jeffrey Geller and Maxine Harris is a very moving collection of the experiences that 25 women went through during the Victorian age in America. Each account written by the women themselves either during their commitments or after their release.

Each of them felt it necessary to share what had happened to them with the world. Either to try and make sense of it for themselves, or to try and open the eyes of the ignorant public to what was actually going on behind those big locked gates. Some of them even campaigning for reform of behalf of those they had left behind.

It's a truly touching book that deals with many aspects of life at a Victorian Insane Asylum. and as each account is written by the women themselves, everything is written in the gentle, refined tones of the time.

The descriptions of what they went through is enough to bring tears to even the hardest heart. The experimental surgery, the harsh treatment and beatings by attendants and nurses that themselves had been promoted from among the patients, the water treatments, mental torture and often filthy conditions...

These women went through Hell and were somehow still strong enough to re-visit their ordeals by writing them down for others to read.

One of the things that stuck with me after finishing this book, other than the main women that were sharing their stories, were the glimpses they shared of the other women that they saw around them.

Total lack of understanding about mental conditions meant that most of the women writing these accounts were perfectly sane. Probably even more so than most of us, convicted to the care of asylums because someone wanted them out of the way, or because they held views that their fathers and husbands did not agree with. Some even for being too fond of clothes or for just not being as pretty as they once were.

But the women they describe around them are the ones that actually had problems. The ones that needed care and proper treatment, but received cruelty and abandonment instead. Left to fend for themselves in filth and confusion while the lazy staff forced them to scrub floors and do laundry to avoid being beaten or starved.

I know that this has to be one of the oddest subjects for a doll that there is, but these glimpsed snapshots of asylum inmates just stick with me, yearning to be made into something tangible, something that can be cared for and looked after. Something that can be given a good home, maybe a pretty view for them to look at, or a generous heart to help balance their minds.

So when one of these poor creature gets louder and louder in my mind, begging to be made into reality, who am I really to say no to them.
Why shouldn't they be made?


I know that I'm not the only one that has suffered from some sort of mental condition form time to time. We've all experienced stress at some point during our lives, maybe a period of depression, or even the occasional outburst of hysteria or panic.
Then there are those that struggle with greater problems such as long term depression, nervous breakdowns, or horrible phobias . And know we know enough of these awful conditions to know how the treat them, to have sympathy for the sufferers, and to treat them with respect.

I've seen what happens to people that suffer from depression and stress up close quite a few times through my life. And am always amazed how people manage to carry on and live their lives.

I've been there when family members and close friends have been suffering beyond anything I could do anything to help with. And I've seen them come out of the other side of the most hideous experiences and illnesses to be an even stronger more beautiful person than they were before.

I'm always amazed how my loved and cherished family and friend always manage to amaze me more as time passes with their strength and courage.

Just recently I know that I've been suffering from a form of depression brought on by very low levels of iron in my blood. Although I've been anaemic most of my life, these sudden drops always leave me tearful, confused, prone to panic attacks, feeling ill with no energy and tired beyond the point of sleep, which of course only makes matters worse. Add to that external pressure from my day job, worries about how I'm going to manage to fix my living room ceiling after a big chunk fell in, and having problems with my back again and I'm surprised I've got anything done at all.

But we do, don't we?
We carry on and make the best of things.
And that's why humanity is so amazing. And why I'll continue to make these sad little creatures when one decides it's time to be made. And I hope that someone out there can understand why I do it, and open up their lives to a doll like Ivy May.

Adriana Brinkle

Adriana’s life was a sad one. Convicted to an asylum for two very small reasons: firstly, she was extravagant and very fond of dress, and secondly because she made a mistake that threatened to bring disgrace to her family. She was naturally gay and intelligent, and knew that she had a father and an uncle there to help her out of any financial difficulty, so was extravagant in her use of money.

The particular event that led to her incarceration was that she became involved with buying furniture on part credit to furnish the parlour she had rented in the house of two old ladies that were distant relations. She had no room there for a piano, so moved to a larger house in the same neighbourhood which was already furnished, so went ahead and sold the previously bought furniture. The dealer that had originally sold her the furniture heard of this and prosecuted her. She was naive to financial matters, and was unaware of the difficulties that her father and uncle were experiencing with their business. Before the time came for her appearance in court her Physician father decided that she would be placed in an asylum and the insanity plea used in court in her defence. She was questioned briefly by both her father and another doctor who she had never met. They asked about her general bodily health and if she would like to go on a journey. It was later explained to her that the purpose for these questions was to decide if she should be sent to an asylum. Her father told her that they did not believe her to be insane, but under the circumstances it was all that could be done.

She knew where she was going, and was told that it was preferable to being put in jail, but she did not relish the thought of being shut in with the insane. The judge that took her to the asylum where she would spend so long talked openly to the doctors of her extravagance in her presence, as if that was reason enough to commit a young woman to the terrible life she would experience at the asylum. Everything was strange there, and as an intelligent sane woman she could see for herself that the nurses and attendants at the hospital were not themselves rational beings, and some of them had even been promoted to their positions after being patients there for some years. Her father visited and commented of her health looks and promised that she only had to wait there until the troubles had blown over. It was the last time she ever saw him, and he died four years later. Her release turned out to be more difficult than expected.

At the typical asylum where Adriana was committed the untrained staff were violent to the patients, who couldn’t understand why they were being beaten or how to avoid it. The only way that you could get on their good side was to do their work for them, becoming their slaves. Any bruises caused by the violent attacks seen by family visitors were always explained away as accidents and falls. The lucky ones were the ones whose family did not believe these stories and removed them. The rest had to learn how to cope in this strange insular tyrannical world. Suicides occurred, and even the dead went without compassionate treatment and were treated with great disrespect.

After new laws were passed in 1884 which gave inmates the freedom to write with any grievances they had to the Committee on Lunacy Adriana wrote to one of the medical members named on the notice posted in her ward. Along with other women Adriana waited for some replay or visit, which never came. After months she wrote again, believing that the first letter must have gone missing, and this time her case was looked into at once, and her appeal for liberty given the first serious consideration it had ever had. She was visited by doctors of the committee and her release was ordered immediately. Her board at the asylum had always been paid from funds left to her, and after being at the asylum for so long she hardly knew what to do or where to go. She went to a Convalescents’ Retreat where she spent many years being looked after by the kind staff, and where she wrote and published the account of her life as an inmate in the hopes of improving the treatment of those she had left behind locked away – doomed to a living death with no chance of freedom. Adriana was 60 years old when she was finally released. And she devoted many hours trying to improve conditions for those less fortunate than herself.

As Adriana knew where she was going and what was ahead of her, even though she had little choice in what was happening to her, I think that she would have tried her best to dress as simply as she could. She would have been aware that she would have no attendant of servant to help her dress, so I chose to dress her is a well fitted cotton day dress, but without the trappings of bustle cage or too much structure. The kind of dress that would have been worn for comfortable days at home, but because of her extravagant nature I also decided to make it in an impractical, but beautiful, light blue fabric, when a darker colour would have been more suitable, and trimmed it with lace and long ribbons, with a high lace collar. Her white cotton underwear and corset are worn under a soft cotton lawn corset cover to protect her dress from the sharp edges and ridged form of her corset, with one plain cotton petticoat under a cleverly constructed one that is gathered and has ruffles down the back to help give her dress some of the fashionable bustle shape, all worn over a stuffed moon shaped bum pad instead of the usual restrictive cage. Her fancy last petticoat of my favourite stripped cotton lawn has a ruffle around the bottom and is again gathered in back to provide shape, trimmed with a pink tapestry ribbon. Her gown has pretty three quarter sleeves with deep cuffs and lace trim. The crossed front has an almost Kimono style, and that along with the gathered apron front to her dress are both trimmed with navy satin and more lace. She wears a navy velvet sash finished in a large bow in the small of her back and left trailing down her skirts, which has a slight train to give it a soft finish.

She Has A Name - Adriana Brinkle

After getting my tiny wedding cake toppers mostly dressed I had a real need to work on something a bit bigger. The tiny details I'll have to create on Hazel's wedding dress need to wait until I can shake off a big nasty cold I've had for a while now and concentrate properly on those tiny stitches. The perfect doll to keep me busy was just waiting in the dark corners of my mind, quietly calling to me.

If you follow my tweets you might have seen me mention the work I've been doing on a doll with no name. It's odd for me not know who my dolls are while I'm dressing them and giving them their character. But this time around I just had no name.

I knew who she was, her story, her background and what had happened to her. I had a clear image of her in my head and knew what she would wear down to the last details, and I was getting really frustrated not knowing who she was.
I had to go back through a big stack of books to try and find her, and in the end I found her name - Adriana Brinkle.

Adriana had a sad life. She was young, gay and inclined to be extravagant. And her love of fashionable dress and a financial mistake led her to be locked away in an insane asylum. At her fathers insistence she had been tried at court and a plea of insanity used as her defence to keep the family from disgrace.

Even though she was a bright young woman she was held at the asylum and treated as though she were insane. Subjected to all the indignities and poor treatment that was normal at institutions during the Early- Mid-Victorian era.

Adriana suffered quietly, and with as much dignity as she could. Her only hope were the promises made to her by her father that she would be released as soon as the troubles caused by her debts had blown over.
Little did she know that she would spend a total of 28 years locked away, hidden from sight.

I finally tracked down Adriana's name with her whole sad story in the book Women Of The Asylum by Jeffrey Geller and Maxine Harris. A brilliant book containing 26 first hand accounts of women that were placed in mental institutions against their will between the years 1840 - 1945. Too many of these women were completely sane, and all of them where misunderstood. The rough handling and poor treatment they received, along with the truly barbaric practices carried out by doctors and attendants, left many of them weak, bodily ill and experiencing mental problems they had not had before. But all of the accounts in this book show how strong, intelligent and focused they were. Determined to tell their stories to others to try and make some difference to the worlds they had left behind.

Adriana Brinkle was one of the lucky few that may have had some knowledge of what was happening to her before she was committed. She knew where she was going and why, being convinced that the asylum was better than being sent to jail.

Too many women had to endure the shock of being suddenly torn from their family life and thrown into a new world among a mixture of the helplessly insane and the tormented wrongly committed with no prior thought of what was coming.
The Victorian Insane Asylums were truly horrible places where even the doctors had little understanding of how to treat their patients. And the suffering was made all the more horrid for those that were trying to hold on to the sanity that they had had when they entered the system.

I've dressed my Adriana in a Victorian day dress from around the late 1860's to early 1870's. She has on her split drawers trimmed with lace and ribbon, a short shift, corset, plain petticoat, and a checked trimmed corset cover as she was a very fashionable young lady that would have worn the best fabrics she could get, and wouldn't want the stiff hard edges of her corset damaging the delicate fabric of her gown.

Over these she has a moon shaped bum pad and another white cotton petticoat with ruffles down the whole of the back to try and provide some of the shape missing from the lack of a bustle.

At first I made Adriana a metal band bustle, but had to think would she really have been able to keep up with this level of fashion in an asylum, so decided to removed it. I have to keep reminding myself that she knew where she was going, and even though she was young and admits to being very fond of dress, I just don't think that she would have been so impractical to think she would be able to manage this level of dress at the asylum. I really want to make her dress as accurate as possible, but with all that I've read of Victorian asylum life I know that there would have been no-one to help Adriana dress each morning, and no-one to help tie her into the cage bustle. So even if she had worn it she would have soon had to do without it. I'll keep the bustle for another doll on another day.

Because she was intelligent I think Adriana would have chosen a more practical dress. The things she would have taken with her into the asylum would have been practical, and simpler than the high fashion she loved. Things that she was sure she would be able to manage on her own with no help, but still with as much fashion and clever shaping as was available to her. Both her ruffled petticoat and stripped cotton lawn fine petticoat are gathered cleverly to hold their bulk at the back with a very slight train. The kind of dress that could be worn around the home to allow a little more comfort while still giving a fashionable silhouette, all kept neatly in place with hidden tapes and tied easily in place.

Her dress will be of a beautiful vintage sky blue cotton lawn with a navy pattern that I've had for a while and have been really looking forward to using on the right doll. I've finished off Adriana's three-quarter lace trimmed sleeves, and an oriental inspired cross front bodice trimmed with navy satin and white lace, with a high lace collar worn underneath. Now I just have to sew together her skirts and learn how to make a swag gathered front for her. I think I'll have a go at doing something for the back of her gown I've not tried before too, but I'm still thinking about what that might be :)

Joel and Hazel's Wedding Dolls In Progress

Since finishing Maria Manning I've been working on a pair of cake toppers for our friends and neighbors, Joel and Hazel. Please forgive my photo's. We're having a very odd hot bright start to Oct here in Wales, and they are a little sun-bleached.

At first I thought these little dolls were going to be easy, but how wrong I was. I've made so many large dolls over the past few months I totally forgot how hard it would be to work on tiny 5in dolls in much detail. And,, of course, wedding dolls need lots of details. The other issue was that neither Joel nor Hazel is what I'd call Traditional. He with his long red gold hair and goatee, and she with her dramatic black hair and individual stunning sense of style. Both are members of a heavy rock band and while she's one of the Swansea City Slayers Roller Derby Team, he is their referee. I knew from the start that this wouldn't be your typical white fairy tale dress type wedding, and I was looking forward to something a little less main stream. And that's just what I got :)

I can't say too much about "The Dress" of course, but it is very beautiful. Just how I'm going to recreate it on this tiny doll I have no idea. And so far I only have the under-layers done, but already this little mini-me of Hazel has a real drama about her. As a nod towards her actual hair style I've cut a fringe into the feathers of the dolls wild black hair, and have added shape and layers to the under-dress to try and get this fab dress to sit something like the original.

Part of it has that lovely crushed / gathered look to it, so after managing to get the look on pure silk for Lizzie Siddal, I had a go on a synthetic satin similar to what I'm using for her dress. It worked out quite well, but there where a few changes in how I did it. 

With the pure silk I wet it thoroughly and ring and crush all the water out before leaving it to dry hung on the radiator. After that I ironed it to lessen the effect a bit. The synthetic wasn't so easy. Again, I wet it through thoroughly, but just ringing it by hand wasn't enough. In the end I scrunched up the fabric and clamped each end in small woodwork clamps. My grip is rubbish, so I had to ask my husband to finish of keeping the fabric taught and twisting it as tightly as he could until it all twisted in on itself in a hard tight knot. Then another clamp to keep it all still and I left it to dry a bit overnight. When I opened the fabric this morning to spread it out to dry properly so I can sew it tonight it has the perfect creased texture ready for me to use on "The Dress" :). This bit is the example piece.

Joel had a few ideas about what he was going to wear before deciding on a classic all black Morning Suit. I managed very nice tiny cuffs, and even a wing collar and satin cravat, waistcoat and trousers before coming almost totally unstuck with the tailcoat.
If you could have heard me swearing at the stupid thing you would have been ashamed of me I'm sure. Between the collar going wrong, the tails not being even and somehow the sleeves ending up different lengths I finally got it done. The took another look and realised it was all too bulky and boxy for the slim figure I needed. I had top do the whole thing over. Cursing to myself that I hadn't realised sooner what was going wrong. But these things happen sometimes and at least now I have a good idea how to get a tiny jacket made up quite reasonably. He's looking quite good now :)

I still need to add a few more details to my tiny Joel doll. Like painting on just a little stubble, tinting his eyes, adding cuff links and a pocket handkerchief and flower, and painting on the classic black converse trainers he'll be wearing. But I'm very happy that the real Joel is happy with him so far. Now I just have to hope that Hazel likes hers.

Maria Manning - Hung For Murder 1849/50

I've had a bit of a problem with my back for years now. And last week it decided without my say so to have a bit of an "Episode". So I had to stay home from work at the day job.

To keep myself occupied I sat in my comphy upright chair, stayed warm, took my tablets, watched hours of period dramas, and sewed until my fingers hurt. Not only did I manage to finish my Maria Manning doll, but also managed to get my mothers Christmas present, a Spanish Flamenco Dancer doll, dressed and wigged. So here they both are.

Maria Manning was born in Switzerland and emigrated to Britain to work as a lady’s maid to the wealthy Lady Blantyre, who was the daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland. She developed a taste for a luxurious lifestyle amid the elegance of her employer’s homes and general finery. She dreaded the idea of poverty, and resolved she would never live like that. She met Patrick O’Connor while travelling with her mistress. And as a custom-house officer at London’s docks he was independently wealthy, as well as his being a well-known money lender. Maria was also involved with Frederick Manning, who did not have a very well paid job. Both men proposed to her at around the same time, and Maria had to decide which one of them would make the better husband and provide for her better. After promising Maria that he was soon to come into a large inheritance, the younger Frederick ‘won the day’, and he and Maria were married. At first the couple afforded a fairly stylish house, but she soon realised that the inheritance was not to come. She continued to see O’Connor, and renewed her affair with him; apparently with the acquiescence of Manning.

On 17th Aug 1849 two policemen discovered a body under the flagstones in the kitchen of Mr & Mrs Manning’s home in Bermondsey. The skull was fractured in two places, and a bullet protruded under the skin of the right eye. The deceased was Patrick O’Connor who had been a frequent visitor to the house, and had often joined the couple for dinner at their home. Maria had hatched a plan to kill her rich lover and take his money. It’s known that she purchased a sack of quicklime and a shovel before inviting him to dinner on the 9^th Aug 1849. When he arrived she suggested that he might like to wash his hands before dinner. And as he did so standing at the kitchen sink, she shot him in the head with a pistol. The bullet did not kill him, and Frederick finished him off by battering his head with a crowbar. The couple then buried the body in a pre-dug grave below the kitchen flagstones, covering it with plenty of quicklime to try and speed the body’s decay. The following day Maria went to O’Connor’s lodgings and managed to con her way into his rooms where she systematically went through his belongings and stole railway shares and other valuables, returning the next day to take anything more she had missed. She was the power behind the murder, although her husband had helped.

Two days later two men claiming to be O’Connor’s colleagues came to the Manning home looking for him, giving them a nasty fright. They suspected that they were detectives, and so decided to leave London immediately. After sending her husband to try and sell their furniture Maria packed everything of value she could find and that she could carry and left for Edinburgh. Maria’s motive was pure greed, and while she was willing to grant O’Connor sexual favours it’s clear all she really wanted was his money. Mrs Manning was eventually found and arrested in Edinburgh, where she was trying to sell the railway shares she had stolen from the murdered man. Her husband was found in Jersey. The contrast between Maria and her husband was great, her with a proud, cold demeanour and he unimpressive and weak, which left him widely despised for hiding behind his wife.

At their trial each tried to blame the other, and as the verdict was passed Maria showed the only emotion that she had shown throughout the whole of her arrest, trial and finally her execution – She lost her composure and screamed and raved at the judge, shouting “Damnation Seize Ye All” as he tried to pass the death sentence. Although she apparently asked the wardens escorting her back to gaol how they had liked her performance in court. She was considered a suicide risk, and had 3 wardenesses that slept in the cell with her, very much to her disgust. She lulled them into a false sense of security, and after letting her nails grow long tried to strangle herself and puncture her own windpipe. To prepare her for the gallows her arms where bound behind her with cords, and her stiff starched and corded petticoats would have been taken away so that her gown and legs could be bound on the platform to prevent the wind causing her skirts to blow up. She asked to be blindfolded by a black silk handkerchief, and had her face covered with a black lace veil to conceal her features from public gaze. Walking to their death at a public hanging she walked to her doom with a firm, unfaltering step, while his step was ‘feeble and tottering, and he had to be supported by two turnkeys’. On their way a singular coincidence occurred. The Manning’s walked over their own graves, just as they had made their victim do in the kitchen.

Maria Manning made it into Madame Tussaud’s famous waxworks. And it’s likely that they were sold the actual dress that Maria had died in. She was an attractive woman. Her gown as she walked to her death was of black satin, and it was widely believed that it was because of this that black satin became unfashionable immediately after her execution and stayed so for nearly 30 years.

Charles Dickens described the sight of the hangings – “The man’s a limp loose suit of clothes, as if the man had gone out of them; the woman’s a fine shape, so elaborately corseted and artfully dressed, that it was quite unchanged in its trim appearance as it swayed slowly from side to side”.

My Maria wears white cotton bloomers and shift under a corset and lots of petticoats. Over her sage green under petticoat she has one with lots of cording sewn tightly tucked inside by hand to help hold out her huge skirts. This was before the introduction of the cage crinoline, and skirts were held out with as many petticoats as a woman could bear to wear or carry, sometimes as many as 20 plus layers of petticoats, all sewn to one or two waistbands, using different techniques to stiffen them and lots and lots of starch. After this corded petticoat (which actually lets this doll stand unaided if you get the balance right), Maria has a heavily flounced dark red petticoat before her black satin under- and over-skirts. She has a black lace shoulder covering small shawl and false sleeves, and a black satin bodice with fashionable almost off the shoulder low arm seemed shoulders. The sash she wears around her waist is purple satin, and her hair had a touch of navy blue to add some colour. A lady at this time would not have gone out in public without a bonnet or hat. And there are illustrations that picture Maria in a white cap trimmed with black lace. So I made my doll a similar cap of ivory silk cotton and trimmed it with black satin ribbon and lace. And I've made her her own rope noose to carry to the gallows.

After all that darkness it was a real change to sew the bright red spotted cotton into loads of ruffles for my Mother's Rosy, a traditional Flanenco Dancer with a fitted long bodice, ruffles at her neck, sleeves, wrists and all over her trailing skirt, with a white lace shawl for good measure. She was fun to make, even though not really my style. And I really hope my Mam likes her :)

Maria Manning - The Killer of Black Satin

After having a total panic when I realised I have 3 commission dolls to finish by the end of October, and then another pair before Christmas, going on a shopping mission to gather all the fabric I need together, and planning out my activities so strictly I could tell you what I'm doing on the Monday in three weeks time, part of my brain decided that I had time to fit in one more doll before I had to start them.
I must be nuts!

To make things just a little more difficult for myself, the only doll I wanted to make right now was the scandalous Victorian Murderer Maria Manning.

Maria and her husband were convicted and hung in  1849 for the murder of Patrick O'Connor - Maria's Lover!

Maria was a Lady's Maid working for a great English lady. And she'd acquired a taste for the richer things in life during her career.
She had been in a relationship with both O'Connor and Manning when both proposed to her. She had to choose between the already rich customs officer and loan shark O'Connor, and the poor Manning who had told her he would soon be coming into a large inheritance. She chose the later, and soon found that the inheritance would never come, and she was stuck living a poor life without any of the extravagances she wanted.

She began her affair with O'Connor shortly after; some say with her husbands knowledge. He was a frequent visitor to their home, and one night when invited to dinner, Maria shot him in the back of the head, Manning battered him around the skull to make sure he was dead, and the couple buried him in a pre-prepared grave beneath the kitchen flagstones, covering the body with quicklime.

 After twice talking her way into O'Connor's rooms and stealing everything of value, Maria then tricked her husband and left for Scotland with all the valuables they possessed and her stolen loot.

She was a heartless, cold , and calculating woman who dammed the court as her sentence was read after trying to blame the whole murder on her weak, pathetic husband. As she walked to the gallows, ironically passing over her own grave site as she did so just as O'Connor must have walked over his in the kitchen, she held her head high and walked with a firm step. She chose to wear a fashionable black satin gown with black lace veil to her hanging. And as there was so much publicity and scandal surrounding the case, it being reported in every newspaper and journal throughout the country, the  popularity of wearing black satin suddenly declined, and it didn't come back into fashion for 30 years.

Maria isn't the easiest doll to have decided to make in a limited time because of the period of clothing that she'll need. 1849 was still 5 or 6 years before the invention of the cage crinoline, and the huge bell shaped skirts favoured by women of the time were created by multiple layers of petticoats alone.

Two of Maria's petticoats are just finished. So along with her baggy bloomers and long scoop necked chemise and corset Maria now wears an under-petticoat of green cotton to protect her legs from the stiff coarse calico fabric of her corded petticoat.

As the two women were living during the same period, Maria's corded petticoat is constructed in the same way as I made one for my Mary Shelley. Just on a smaller scale as Maria is quite a bit smaller than Mary is. Each cord has been individually tucked into the calico and hand sewn into place, with the next cord folded in very close to the first with some gaps left between groups of rows to give some flexibility. When all the cords were in I then sewed a panel of calico to the back of the cording panel to stop them curling up and to keep them in the right shape. A real full-sized corded petticoat would have hundreds of lines of cording sewn into it to create the support needed to keep the voluminous skirts held out in the fashionable bell shape. And I really can't imagine having to hand sew one of these garments for myself as women did then. It must have taken months to complete, and must have been very tough on the fingers. I have a hole in my finger after just sewing in 21 cords, and remember having many small injuries after finishing Mary Shelley's larger corded petticoat.

Now I'm on to the next layer to help create bulk and soften the shape of Maria's skirts - a dark red flounced petticoat. I know that women during the 1840's would have worn any number of petticoats, from six to thirty in varying layers of plain, flounced, corded and ones stuffed with horse hair. But Maria's size is limiting me to how many I can get away with in her costume. After this next flounced layer I think there will only be room for one more plain one, and then her underskirt and gown. I'm looking forward to sewing in the nice floaty black sating I have ready for her. But that low scooped neckline is going to be a real challenge :)

Terry's Grandmother

Terry’s family originates from Germany and Yugoslavia. They travelled as Gypsies throughout Europe, and through the stories told to him by his Grandmother it’s clear that the strongest sense of magic in his life came from her. In Terry’s Grandmother all of the knowledge and skills of generations came together, and sadly no name is given for her in the account I read in A Victorian Grimoire by Patricia Telesco.

She had many magical things around her home such as a Ouija board that was still used on occasion when Terry was a child. It was a unique object; round with protective symbols at the edge and a pentagram in the centre. The family believed that the best wood for such a board was oak or yew, and this one was oak. The most unique feature of this board was that instead of a planchette it employed a blue crystal hanging from a chain. In this way there was no real physical contact with it other than when setting it up. There were traditional alphabet letters imprinted on it, but it lacked the “yes”, “No”, and “End” seen on more modern boards, and it was stored away in a special velvet cloth and left undisturbed when not in use. The crystal itself was left sitting out as decoration. Another tool, a two-hundred-year-old Tarot deck was sadly destroyed when one family member converted to Catholicism. It was reportedly made of cloth and slightly larger than the decks we use today.

Terry’s Grandmother was known as a wise woman and a psychic reader, often employing flower petals for divination in a perfectly Victorian manner. She had a talent for communicating with spirits, seeing into the future, interpreting dreams, and of course, healing love-sick hearts. For pregnant women she often advised different types of teas for each month, and her commanding demeanour usually kept them listening. In matters of love she had a very special, distinctive recipe, passed down to Terry himself, for spaghetti sauce. Made as if one were arranging a blind date, and then given to those who needed it. Most of the herbs involved were for love, sex and longevity. And Terry remembers times when the sauce was specially prepared and given to people they knew – they being none the wiser of its attributes.

She had a way with animals, and like a majority of superstitions from the Victorian era, a particular way with birds. She could still feed the birds in the city environment she lived in when an old woman, by Hand! She had unusual pets, like a pet bull that only she could lead, cats with seven toes, porcupines and skunks. And she had kept a kitchen garden at her home when she was younger, stocked full of herbs and useful plants. She had shelves filled with jars of all types of spices, and did her own herb gathering and drying. Usually, the herbs were dried by hanging, but certain herbs had to be dried in the oven at very low temperatures. Unfortunately as she aged memory failed Terry’s Grandmother, and she was unable to recall which herbs these were when Terry had asked her.

Terry’s Grandmother’s home showed a rich magical tradition. There were candles of every shape and colour wherever you went. Tables throughout the house where adorned with hand crocheted doilies, which, if examined closely, contained tiny magical symbols. There is still a brass vase in the family that no one is allowed to touch, but it draws children and adults alike to stare at it; energy radiates from the metal like a beacon. Visitors to her home still remember Terry’s Grandmother warning them of fairies in nearby fields.

I was so inspired by this account of a strong, caring, true Victorian Witch that I couldn’t resist making her as one of my dolls. I pictured her as a smart, intelligent lady. As mentioned in the full account I dressed her as she would have been at the turn of the century. And my Terry’s Grandmother wears sweet lace frilled long knickers and a mid-length white cotton chemise that has a lace frilled front to help emphasise the fashionable shape desired at the time. After a tightly laced corset to show off her still tiny waist Terry’s Grandmother wears a plum coloured petticoat that has a slight train and is gathered in back. Her crisp, high-necked, cream cotton lawn blouse is trimmed with lace to match the lace frills on the three-quarter sleeves of her dress. Which is made of a soft sage green checked fabric, and has a pleated cross front, tailored skirts with an elegant train, and a contrasting purple satin sash.

For this special lady I’ve made her own little scene to sit in, surrounded by some of the things she would have used in her daily life. Tiny jars of spice sit next to jugs of mysterious liquid, with her cauldron nearby ready to cook up the pumpkins picked fresh from her garden. Tucked away behind her handmade stool are two jars of her special spaghetti sauce, and her distinctive Ouija board can be set up for use by setting the curved twisted metal arm holding the blue crystal into the hole right next to the A.