It’s raining today. Just a misty, cloudy, dreary day. Today is day 11 of rain in Northern Virginia. Makes me think about our time in England on the UK Embroidered Casket Tour last October.

While the weather was surprisingly pleasant for the trip through Scotland and England, we did have a few typically cloudy, drizzly days.

Suffering from amazing embroidery overload on the tour made me seek out dolls wherever I could find them. In the museums we visited, there were very few dolls to be found.

I discovered this beautiful Rohmer (?) in a case of unlabeled dolls in the Streatham Galleries at the Bowes Museum.

I wanted to reach through the glass and move that feather.

This is not a great close-up of the beadwork on the costume, but it might be fun to try something like this on a doll dress, or maybe a cape…

The Bowes is most famous for the Silver Swan automaton. We were able to see it in action and it was enchanting.  Here’s a link to a video showing the Silver Swan in action.

The only other dolls we found were a real treat.

Several of Queen Victoria’s childhood dolls were on display at the Museum of London. She and her nanny dressed many, many small German wooden dolls. I was thrilled to see them in person.

I used to own a copy of Frances H Low’s 1894 book, Queen Victoria’s Dolls, but I sold it to buy more dolls. I loved the book, but I didn’t think I would ever have dolls like these of my own.

But since a couple of them now live at my house, I bought it again.

It was such a joy to look at these dolls and imagine a young Victoria sewing for them and playing with them 200 years ago.

I’ve also spent these rainy days getting a bit of stitching done. I’ve completed one kit project, almost completed another, and started on a new one. With my big and small casket projects waiting in the wings, is it cheating (or maybe procrastination) to spend my time working on kits?  I’ll ponder that in my next post.