More of this Feature • Part I:  Friday through Monday

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OK, thanks for sticking with me up to this point in my convention diary!  Now, on to Tuesday through Friday of the Atlanta 2001 convention--more classes, events, friends, fun, and, of course, dolls, dolls and more dolls!  

Tuesday, August 7, 2001:  Betsy McCall Turns 50

I actually have some free time this morning--a rare commodity at doll conventions--and I take advantage of it.  First, I sleep in VERY late.  Then, I check out the lap top/projector connections for my big Thursday afternoon presentation.  Everything checks out, and quickly, so I have time to enjoy the Special Exhibits, which just opened this morning.  The first one is an exhibit called "Tiny Stars" put on by NAME (the National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts)  featuring lovely displays of miniatures  and by Diana Crosby who shared lovely miniature tea sets.  The second Special Exhibit, "This is My Star," was put together by Susan Sirkis, and it showcased the life-time collection of Helen Barglebaugh.  This exhibit also showed the original Marie Louise doll (discussed in Part I).  

For today's lunch I attend Betsy McCall's 50th Birthday Party!  The lunch is very festive and beautifully done--there are party hats for everyone, party favors (little items  for your Betsy McCall) a coated paper dolls place mat and a birthday cake at each table!  The program is about the history of Betsy McCall in McCalls magazine through the decades.  Of course, desert is birthday cake.  The luncheon favor is a Tiny Betsy McCall.  On the way into the luncheon, I meet up with Herb Brown and his wife Judy, and I find out that Herb has decided to resign as the CEO of the Madame Alexander Doll Company.  This is distressing news, since Herb and Judy have been very involved with collectors events and receptive to collectors input.  However, they DO intend to stay involved with the company and also the collector events.

After lunch, I attend the UFDC Region 2N meeting.  Our doll club gets a mention since we were just accepted to UFDC and are one of three new UFDC clubs this year.  I also hook up with some collectors involved with the first UFDC Online Club.  Several members of About have asked about online clubs, so it was great to get information on how the first club is operating.  After the meeting, its back to the UFDC sales room--its like a magnet.  I don't spend any money, but I am intrigued by a set of two tiny parian twins AND by a very unusual bathing beauty dressed in teeny tiny glass beads.  For dinner, I go with Chris to the annual Madame Alexander Dinner.  This year the theme is "Me and My Shadow." The shadow dolls are not a great interest of mine, but I've been to every MA dinner at UFDC since they've been re-introduced, and I didn't want to miss one.  As usual, the dinner is beautifully put on and there is a nice program, of course on the Madame Alexander shadow dolls.  Shadow dolls are, generally, smaller dolls dressed identically to a larger doll, but in the 1950s there was also a specific "Me and My Shadow" line of dolls created by Madame Alexander.  

You'd think that I would just go to bed after dinner, but no--the Competition Room for Antique and Modern Dolls have their opening this evening and I had to see as much as I could in the last hour that it was open.  I didn't enter any dolls in competition this year (I usually do) so I simply enjoyed the incredible variety of top-notch dolls the competition room offers--everything from mint Ginnys to beautiful Jumeaus.  This year, there were some very lovely "Costumed by Exhibitor" dolls, and, in fact, the "President's Choice" ribbon was awarded to one of these dolls this year, for the first time in memory. 

Wednesday, August 8, 2001:  I Can Sew a Whipped Hem!

I spent most of this day in a Louise Hendricks class, "Presentation Box For French All-Bisque Doll."  The class focused on sewing a beautiful dress and underwear for a Cathy Hansen all-bisque Faberge reproduction (all-bisque French reproduction), plus assembling the box.  All materials were included for the seminar, and Louise teaches us many French hand sewing techniques (look, Ma, I can sew a whipped hem!)  The dress that we made was a reproduction of an actual little dress in an original box that Louise had won at a Theriault's auction.  My lunch today was the first ever Bear luncheon I attended, entitled "A Bearry Starry Night."  I wanted to attend the luncheon to learn more about bears, since I am carrying them in my shop, but I have never personally collected them.  The program was about the Gund artist bears line, "Barton's Creek."  Door prizes for the lunch were especially generous, and Gund donated 14 artist bears as prizes!  The lunch favor was a very modern looking bear with blue mohair and silver accents--not my cup of tea, but a bear I knew my son would enjoy.  I return to the all-day class, where I am now hopelessly behind since most of my classmates sew through lunch.  I don't get to finish even the dress during class time. Wednesday evening I got to go off-campus for dinner with some business associates (it was the first time that I had left the hotel since Sunday!).  After dinner it was "camera time" in the Special Exhibit and Competition rooms--the only time that we are allowed to take photos in those two rooms.  UFDC has an extremely restrictive policy on press usage of photos of dolls from those two rooms, and I hope that it will change in the future so that I can share more photos of dolls from convention on this site.

Thursday, August 9, 2001:  UFDC's First PowerPoint Presentation

Thursday morning is the UFDC Annual Business meeting.  I can't discuss actual club business from the meeting here, since the Annual Meeting is a closed business meeting for club members only.  I will only say that online clubs were mentioned quite favorably AND my new doll club got another welcome into the UFDC.   After the business meeting, the journals were ready for distribution, and they were worth waiting for--a beautiful presentation cover, with a lovely book on a special antique doll collection on one side AND patterns for outfits shown on dolls in that collection on the other side!  People were really thrilled with it.  

Then, I spent lunch in my room frantically going over my notes for my two-hour PowerPoint presentation on "Doll Collecting and the Internet."  This presentation, one of two new "Expanded Programs" (the other one was on Hitty) was an open-to-all attendees for a 2-hour, formal presentation of some of the material from my seminars.  This was also the first PowerPoint presentation in the history of UFDC National conventions, and, visually, it was a success.  The projector projected a huge, bright image--so sharp and bright that the lights could stay partially on for note taking!  During the presentation, it seemed that the attendees were enthusiastic and engaged, but I couldn't REALLY tell how it went until sometime on Friday, because by then many people had come up to me to tell me that they enjoyed the presentation, which was a relief!  

Since I am totally NUTS, I squeeze in a bit MORE salesroom time after my presentation.   I note that the parian twins  have been sold (sigh!) but the bathing beauty is still there.  I also buy a few more vintage postcards.   This evening is the Sydney Chase dinner, which I attended with Arlene.  The Robert Tonner Company very generously gives out many outfits and dolls as door prizes, and there was a detailed video program that chronicled how The Robert Tonner Company makes a doll from start to finish--from the design stage to dressing and wigging.  The souvenir doll is a hit--the FIRST Sydney Chase doll released, in a pink outfit, and the first doll from the line with bendy elbows!  After dinner, I put in the remainder of my Helper Tickets (did I mention Helper tickets?  If not, check out last year's "Diary Of A Mad Doll Collector--Chicago 2000"  to find out all about them.  I feel VERY free and crazy now that my last teaching program is over, so Arleen and I stay up really, really late, packing our treasures and talking and giggling like a pair of teenagers.  Arleen decides to sell her Sydney to help pay for another doll that she bought at convention (I am, of course, horrified, because I could never part with my new Sydney. but she's selling it because she bought a Cathy Hansen doll which I also collect...so, really, I can't blame her).

Friday, August 10, 2001:  Bathing Beauties and Banquets

OK, I'll admit it--I'm tired!  But there's one more day to go.  This morning I start with Jim Farone's exceptional seminar on fashion doll makeovers.  Jim tells ALL his secrets--in fact, he says that telling ALL keeps him on his toes, since then he has to come up with NEW techniques all the time!  We learn all about re-rooting hair and eyelashes, how to make molded hair, how to repaint a doll, costuming tips (like how to make stockings!) and much more.  Jim is the author of the well-received "Fashion Doll Makeover" series of books.  Jim is also extremely generous, and every one of his 30 students left with a door prize--everything from jewelry for Gene and Tyler (which I won) to fully made-over dolls!  

I start the afternoon by finding out that, for the 5th straight year I haven't won any helpers (waah!).  Then, I have a VERY small lunch (I'm not only tired, but I've eaten so much that I'm sure I've gained a few pounds).  And then, I can't help it, but that bathing beauty is calling me back to the salesroom.  She is an expensive bathing beauty, as bathing beauty dolls go, but she is very rare and most interestingly attired.  And, she is VERY little, which is something I collect (very little dolls, miniatures, anything LITTLE!).  She's still there, I get a small discount on her, and she's mine.  

Then, I'm walking OUT of the salesroom, really and exceptionally broke at this point.  But...I see a very darling little all-bisque twin babies presentation that Jan Foulke is selling, at a very reasonable price.  The little twin babies are on a pillow, with the toy stork next to them.  I  have some little twin babies JUST like this on a Hertwig sample card in my collection, but in bunting instead of on a pillow with a stork, so I buy it.  OK, what's the word for totally and irretrievably broke??  I THINK I have money left for the cab to the airport.

There's nothing left to do but pack (did I mention the two empty trunks I brought with me to convention?  See my Doll Convention Survival Guide).  and dress for our gala banquet dinner.  Arleen and I dress early and head down for drinks at the ground-floor level bar, because its clear that the 4 elevators in our tower will NOT be able to handle the deluge of collectors heading down to dinner all at the same time later on (I could bore you with all our tales of elevator woe for the week, but I won't).  We leisurely sip our glass of wine, then head down to the before-banquet official cocktail hour, where we mingle with friends old and new.  

We have a GREAT group at our banquet table.  A good number of the banquet attendees at our table take part in the tradition of bringing gifts for the other 9 attendees--so, we have a mini-Christmas before dinner!  Gifts include little Christmas ornaments, little dolls, kazoos, poppers (NOT a drug, but a noisy party favor) and blow-up confetti bags.  WHAT fun.   We also have an International table, with collectors from Brazil and Russia joining collectors from the West and Midwest USA.  The banquet entertainment was very different this year--an award-winning dance couple doing everything from the rumba to American swing (we all wondered WHAT a huge dance floor was doing in the center of the banquet hall when we first walked in...I mean, a doll collecting convention is NOT a place where there is an even distribution of male/female dance partners!).  The convention doll, received at the end of the banquet,  was "Alexander," a darling molded-clothes all-bisque boy with a pattern.  He's part of the Marcus trio of dolls (Marcus was the 2000 convention favor) which collectors are supposed to sew for.  I will admit that I didn't like Marcus at first, but I lacked vision--dressed Marcuses were on display for the UFDC Silent Auction during the week, and they were stunning.

For our grand convention finale, our rowdy table does a rendition of "I Wish I Were in Dixie" on our kazoos at the end of the dinner.  Arleen and I decide that its just not time to end convention YET--so we go to the top of the hotel for drinks/talking at their revolving restaurant (which, by the way, was the most either of us got to see of Atlanta all week!)

Saturday, August 11th,  2001

Nothing left to do but travel home safely AND get our treasures home. I've been to five straight UFDC National Doll Conventions but the conventions never fail to delight, educate, thrill (and exhaust!) me.  This year's convention, "A Starry, Starry Night" was no exception.  See you NEXT year, for "Celebrate!,' the 2002 Convention in Denver, Colorado.  

Don't Miss:  Part I:  Arrival through Seminars to Storybook Dolls

Look for a PHOTO GALLERY from Convention later this week!

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