Meet My Hittys: Hitty Pica and Bitty Hitty Chubs

Pica (left) and Chubs are good (meaning bad) examples of "Haste makes waste." I was hurrying both of them along, trying to get them ready for the woodcarving competitions at the Dixie Classic Fair last year. They didn't make it. Neither is very well carved or painted, and I also drilled crooked peg holes. I probably will work on recarving Pica's head and re-pegging Chubs at a later date. But, as you know from my other posts, I tend to let my dolls be whatever they are -- beauty isn't necessarily a requirement at Saggy Bottom, the home of the Garden Spot Hittys.

Of course, the experience really wasn't wasted, and I would never throw a doll away, so they are as cherished as any other resident of the Garden Spot. So far, they are the last of the dolls I have carved. I have several in various states of creation, but I can't predict when they will be "born."

I think my future posts will be introducing other Hittys in my collection, if y'all are interested!

Meet My Hittys: Bitty Hitty Polly

I've decided to use this blog to introduce everyone to my collection, and I decided to start with the Hittys I have made for myself.

So, please meet Bitty Hitty Polly, the very first doll I carved. She was begun in 2007 during the Hitty gathering in Guthrie, Okla. She is named for the Pollard Inn, a historic bank building turned hotel, in downtown Guthrie that was our HQ during the event.

She was carved from a blank of pear wood given to me by Sara Cole. I finished her the following year when I decided I really needed to have some guidance. So I signed up for a personal enrichment woodcarving class through the local community college and taught by Bonnie Quate. Thanks to Bonnie, she turned out pretty well for a first doll.

About the carving class: I was the only one attempting to carve dolls. Most of the others worked on various animals and birds or on walking sticks. It was a new thing for them, and I even tempted several into making their own Hittys. (They turned out much better than mine.) It has been fun sharing the experience with them. They must think so, too, because after the college dropped the class in 2009, we decided to continue meeting as a club. If there is a club or a class in your area, I highly recommend taking it. You'll learn a lot, and possibly make some new friends!

Back to Polly, I should mention the dress she is wearing came from a colonial-style cloth doll that I got in Williamsburg, Va., during the Friends of Hitty 10th Reunion in 2004. It fits her to a "T" and seems to suit her.

What I like about all the dolls I've carved, rudimentary though they are, is that they all have a personality -- maybe not the one I was striving for, but, hey, little surprises are fun!

Next time, you'll meet Hitty #2, another Bitty named Vada.

Return to the Garden Spot

After a 4-year-hiatus, I have returned to this blog. Since I didn't stop collecting Hitty in that time, I hope to have plenty to write about. If all I did was introduce you to all the residents of the Garden Spot, that would take up most of the year! I do hope to post once a week to converse with the universe about all things Hitty.

Since starting this blog, my collection has expanded to more than 30 Hittys, I started carving Hittys (for my own pleasure, since I don't think they up to sellable standards yet) and I have become unemployed. So while I prepare for a new career, I plan to keep Hitty at my side for those days when I need her charming companionship.

Please, too, let me introduce you to Hitty Martha Washington Brown, who joined the family in 2004 at the Friends of Hitty 10th Anniversary Convention in Williamsburg, Va. She has several lovely colonial costumes but asked to wear this Valentine's Day dress to convey her feelings to the many collectors of Hitty. "Thank you," she says, "for cherishing me and my sisters and keeping our Ancestor and her story alive."

The Story of Gee

I promised to tell you about Gee, my first Hitty. It's a sad tale, but this cloud in my Hitty-collecting universe has several silver linings.
Not long after I found Gee at a UFDC regional conference, I discovered the Hittygirls Yahoo group. I was excited to find other collectors who love Hitty, and and I soon learned what a gracious and giving group of people they were (and are).
In 2003, my husband and I moved to our first house and got a beautiful mutt of a dog we call Lady Lydia Whiskers (Lady for short). Can you see where this story is going already? I made the mistake of trusting Lady to leave Gee alone when I left her (the doll, not the dog) on my bed for a moment. After all, she (the dog, not the doll) had not shown much interest in chewing things.

Big mistake.

Gee was left with part of her face and a foot missing and tooth marks on her body. I felt AWFUL -- obviously I was a terrible mother to both doll and dog. I went to the Hittygirls and confessed all. And then the first bright spot showed itself. Pat Thompson kindly offered to patch Gee up. Since I didn't know then I would have more than one Hitty, I eagerly agreed to send Gee off to the "hospital" and hoped to redeem myself in the eyes of the doll gods.

When Gee returned, she wasn't as good as new but she looked great and had a new air of confidence. I knew that she had come to terms with the experience and was determined not to let it stop her from exploring life. Gee even convinced me to start adding sisters to her family, despite my reservations about my fitness as an owner. Everything was lovely ... until Buddy.
We got Buddy as a companion for Lady in 2004, not knowing that, along with his pathological skittishness, he had an ornery streak, a love of chewing and a talent for larceny.

I was working on a swap project for Hittygirls in mid-2004 in our basement TV room. I had to go upstairs for some reason, so I left Gee on the top shelf of a chest-high bookcase out of harm's way, or so I thought. I didn't think about her again for a day or two. When I went back to the basement to let the dogs out in the back yard, I noticed odd bits of wood that looked like well-chewed doll appendages. Oh, the horror when I realized that this time Gee had truly met her end. The only large piece I found was her splintered torso.

Now, mind you, this dog would have had to climb up on the couch and stretch as far as he could over a side table to grab the doll, and how did he even know that she was there? (Well, I suppose he smelled my scent, but still.)

Here's the second silver lining. Another Hittygirl, TC Vollum, was planning to attend the 10th Hitty and Friends Reunion in Williamsburg, Va., that fall. She offered to take Gee's remains and try to find another doll in that wood.

Somehow, she did just that, and I was tickled pink when Qi (pronounced chee) came to live with me. (Her name means "life energy" in Chinese, and I like to think that she is the embodiment of Gee's inner spark.)

I suppose there are several morals to this story. One, of course, is never trust a dog (even a sweet one). The other, and much more important, is that collecting things can be fun, but collecting friends is more rewarding. And thanks to Gee (and Qi), I have found that precious collectible at Hittygirls.

But I still have nightmares about finding Gee's head in a dusty corner some day.

What is your Hitty grail?

Is there one Hitty you particularly long for? What Hitty would you buy if money were no object (excluding Original Hitty)? Personally, if I had a spare $1,000 hanging around, I'd buy a Jean Lotz Hitty and provide her with as much clothing as I had money left over! I love Jean's interpretations because, to my mind, they come the closest in looks to Original Hitty.

Theresa Maugham created a beautiful Hitty with head of carved parian that I would also love to have. She has such a sweet face! Here's her picture:

http://www.geocities.com/gillifoot/parianhitty.jpg

Here's the rundown on what my Hittys are made of: 19 wood, 7 cloth, 5 mixed medium, 3 resin, 4 clay or related material. The mixed-medium dolls are ones with heads made of one material and cloth bodies (or would have cloth bodies if I had made ones for them).

I would love to hear about your favorite Hitty.

Who was your first Hitty?

Who was your first Hitty? Mine was a Robert Raikes version that I found at the UFDC Region 8 conference in Greensboro, N.C., in 2002. I was so excited to find that doll, named Hitty Genevieve (Gee), though her life story is a sad one. (More on Gee another time.)

My introduction to Hitty came on About.Com's doll-collecting forum in the late 1990s. Someone mentioned the book, so I bought a copy. (Need I say that books are also something I collect?) And like a lot of folks, I fell in love with that little wooden doll and her indomitable spirit. Wouldn't it be wonderful, I thought, to have a Hitty doll? Little did I know that hundreds of other fans had thought the same thing and that there was a whole Hitty world out there to be explored.

And even littler did I know that one Hitty almost inevitably leads to another, and another, and another.... My Hitty clan, called the Garden Spot Hittys, now numbers 37. The number will no doubt grow!

My greatest joy in Hitty, though, is the outstanding group of people I have met who share my fascination with this doll and all her permutations.

If you are interested in learning more, there are two wonderful sites to check out: www.hittygirls.com and www.hitty.org. Managed by a creative mother-daughter team, I can't think of two better places to introduce Hitty to new friends.

Welcome!

Welcome to my first blog. While I plan to write mostly about Hitty, a little wooden doll who is the star of the book "Hitty, Her First Hundred Years," I can't promise I won't go off on tangents. That's what is wonderful about collecting -- you never know where it will lead you. I hope you will check back to see if I live up to my promise to myself of posting several times a week! Meanwhile, happy collecting!