Stain Calamity Kate

This is the last doll that I'll show you before I open the Etsy shop.  This is also the last doll for whom I don't have decent before pictures.

This is a Denver-era Kate or "Kissy Kate" who lingered on eBay for ages before I finally bought her.  She was dressed in baby clothes first, and then the seller re-dressed her into a My Twinn outfit that I'd been wanting to buy, so I finally caved.

Denver Kates are usually like magnets to me, but I had a hard time getting excited about this doll.  First of all, she was covered with stains from her old clothing, and someone had put big black "x" marks on her ears where earrings should be.  I don't really enjoy wrestling with stains, and the results are seldom perfect.  Kate was also a fairly unremarkable doll overall.  She had brown eyes, brown hair, and the medium, slightly yellow skin tone that most My Twinn dolls have.  There was nothing to make her stand out...except that adorable Kate face, which is one of my absolute favorites.

As soon as Kate arrived at my house, I removed her scraggly brown wig, popped out her faded brown eyes, and coated her with RemoveZit to try and lessen the stains on her vinyl.  The first picture I took of Kate was after I'd been working on her for quite a while.  This is after a long round of stain removal treatments and the placement of new Secrist dark blue eyes:

Denver-era Kate in the middle of her restoration.

When I took that first picture, I had actually started to despair with Kate.  Her stains weren't fading as quickly as I'd hoped, the new eyes weren't adding much to her appeal, and--worst of all--it looked like the stain remover I use (Twin Pines of Maine's RemoveZit) was lightening her vinyl, making everything look worse.  Ack!

This was the point at which I started to think of this doll as "Stain Calamity Kate" and gave up most hope of ever getting attached to her, let alone selling her.

I wish I had some pictures of those dark days for you.  By the time I started documenting all of the steps in these makeovers, the eBay listing for this doll was gone, so I couldn't even go back and get some screen shots of what she used to look like.

I did find this single archived photo with a Google search:

That's my girl.

You can just barely see the dark "x" marks on her ears and the stains on her hands.

Her body is definitely in used condition.  The cloth torso is ok from the front, with a few snags visible on her upper arms and shoulders:

But the back of the cloth body has a ton of picks and snags:

This is what her ears looked like after several weeks of RemoveZit treatment:

The "x" marks are still obvious, but nowhere near as dark.

I'll show you what her arms looked like after the RemoveZit treatment, too.  The lightened areas weren't super-obvious, but, combined with some residual darkness from the original stains, the whole arm looks mottled.  

It's hard to capture this in photos because it's subtle, but I've outlined the area of paleness in the first photo:

So that you know where to look in this photo:

I've also turned up the contrast in these pictures to help show the stains.  This setting also makes the vinyl look darker than it is.

Here's another area of mottling:

And again without the lines:

And here's yet another:

You can see that the cloth that's near the vinyl part of the arms is discolored, too.

Here is Kate's right hand after my stain removal attempts.  The tips of the fingers are still dark:

There's also a patch of vinyl on the palm of the right hand that looks like it's been melted:

I tell myself it just looks like a very realistic handprint!

Maybe you can see why I was starting to give up on this doll.  I felt like the more I tried to fix the stains, the worse they got.

Usually Kate's smile would cheer me up, but her face was still pretty dirty at this point, with some sparkly white substance stuck all along her mouth: 

I also wasn't loving the dark blue eyes I used for Katie.  They looked a bit cloudy and, unless they were hit by direct light, seemed a bit too vacant.

I was determined to add some sparkle to this formerly drab doll, so I wrenched the eyes out and tried something totally different.

This picture was taken right in the middle of my attempt to insert some Eyeco acrylic eyes:

They really did not want to cooperate.

Come on, Emily.  Use some muscle!

I finally got the left eye in place, but that darned right eye took at least three more re-heating attempts before I finally...

Slowly...

Got it to settle into place.

I can see!

Even with huge blisters on both of my thumbs and forefingers, I was still thrilled with these eyes.  To me, Katie suddenly came alive!

The eyes are lovely in any kind of lighting, but they're especially beautiful in direct light:

Buoyed by the success of these eyes, I set out to clean Katie's face thoroughly and give it some new paint.  Her eyebrows were faded to almost nothing, and I thought that she (like most dolls) could use some freckles.

Here's her completed face:

I didn't take any pictures from up close, so I cropped the picture, above, to give you a slightly better look at the eyebrows and (very subtle) freckles:

I tried a bunch of wigs on Kate, and was surprised by the one that finally worked.  In fact, I think it looks like it was made for her.

This a slightly unusual wig called "Caramel Latte" from Doll of a Kind.  I bought the wig on a whim a while ago (it's currently sold out) and now wish I had bought a few more.

Here's Kate in her new wig:

Something about the coloring of this wig makes Kate's "ordinary" vinyl color look sun kissed and vibrant.

The wig is mostly a mix of blond shades, but it also has big sections of caramel brown:

I'm crazy about this wig.

Anyway, before I get Kate dressed and show off her wig a bit more, let's go through the current condition of her body.

Her back is still badly snagged.  I don't know of anything I can do about this:

She's from 2002 and has some very minor armature squeaks like many dolls from that time.

The marks on her ears continued to fade for several weeks after I cleaned away the RemoveZit.  Now they're barely visible:

Her arms still look mottled, but the effect has faded somewhat from the first pictures I showed you:

Here's an area on her left arm where you can still see a pale patch:

Here's that right hand again--the stained fingers are still apparent, but they've faded a bit more:

Sorry the pictures are so dark!  I have to rely on the sun to light my pictures here in Maine, and the sun is...ah...fickle in spring.

There's still some dark staining near the top of Kate's vinyl arms (I didn't want to get the RemoveZit too close to the fabric) and some darkened areas on the fabric itself:

I don't know what outfit poor Kate was wearing in her old home, but it must've been high-necked and very dark.  She also has some mild staining on her neck:

While I wasn't able to remove all of the stains on this doll, I barely notice the subtle discolorations anymore.  

I think that's because her sunny face steals all of my attention:

Katie got the multi-colored striped dress from Doll Clothes by Carole.  I think it suits her:

For this doll, though, the wig is everything.  I love this wig so much:

When the hair is down, the darker strands frame Katie's face, but when I pull the hair back a little, like this:

It shows off more of the blonde colors in the wig:

This was one of my favorite makeovers because I felt pretty neutral (and sometimes negative) about Kate for most of the time I was working on her.  Then, suddenly, with the completion of her face paint and the placement of the wig...I fell in love.

This is a hard doll for me to part with.  Her body is still not in great shape, with all of the stains remnants and snags, but I find her totally unique and charming now, and I hope her sunny personality will brighten your day, too.

Here's a list of all the work that was done on Kate:

-stain reduction on head and arms (using Twin Pines of Maine's RemoveZit)

-vinyl cleaning

-new Eyeco A251 acrylic eyes

-new eyelashes

-new Caramel Latte wig from Doll of a Kind

-face paint with faint freckles (eyebrows are repainted but lips are original)

-new outfit from Doll Clothes by Carole

Kate's biggest flaws are that her back is badly snagged and she still has faint residual staining on her arms, neck, and on parts of her cloth body.  I don't think any of these things hold her back, though.  She's a lovely girl and easily my favorite of the dolls I've presented so far.  I hope you like her, too!

Katie is sold.  Thank you!