Work In Progress - 1970's Furga "Old Fashioned" Lady Doll, 18 inches tall

I thought I would go ahead and document my "adventures" in restoring a beautiful Italian Furga doll who stands about 18 inches tall, has lovely auburn hair, and gorgeous sherry/brown colored eyes.  If I were to guess, she is from around 1972.  I did know for sure, but memory escapes me and she is not stamped for a date.  She is simply beautiful.  I have seen a few of these dolls around since I bought her, and most of the time they are complete and have their nice curls and intact dresses.  Well, not this poor girl.  I found her for $1 at a flea market, and had never even seen a Furga doll up close before.  I didn't get a good look at the back of her head until I got home with her, but when I saw her lying in a bin with a bunch of other smaller dolls, I knew at once she was from the 1970's, at least.  And she seemed made of sturdy vinyl and hard plastic.  She had leaves stuck in her hair, she was grimy, her face was especially dirty, the sleeves on her dress had been cut :( ... but I picked her up and she opened those big beautiful brown eyes and I nearly gasped.  Potential!  I had no idea what I would do with that shock of wild hair, but I knew I would figure out something.  If it hasn't been obvious from previous posts (which they're haven't been many, so maybe not), I *love* dolls from the 70's.  The bigger, the better.  I like all dolls, for the most part, nearly all vintage toys in general, but dolls from the 70's tend to have so much character, long flowing hair, bigger eyes, more detailed molds, and great style as far as clothing and in general.

So anyway, this is how she looked when I brought her home:

I was a little dismayed to discover that her left leg had a problem, hence the reason it was a bit loose.  The flange that connects to her hip is torn a little more than halfway around.  So, I could be brave and try to glue the flange, which sticks out a bit from the hip, and hope I don't glue her leg to her body, or I could be brave in a different way and attempt to pop the flange out and glue it to the leg separately, which would be great so that I definitely wouldn't get any glue on the body ... however, I would risk losing the flange inside of her body if I don't pull it right and it tears completely, if I'm not careful.  I'm still weighing my options ... I've been fixing up dolls for over 10 years, but I'm not entirely familiar with Furga, and I like to keep things as original as possible.  There are things I am still learning and am nervous about, such as rerooting (I know, I know, I just need to jump in and do it) and plastic repair.  I am pretty decent at vinyl repair, and although plastic shouldn't be that hard, I find that it can be tricky.  And legs make me really nervous, anyway, especially on smaller dolls.  But I'm hoping it won't be too difficult on this bigger girl.

She was given a nice spa treatment ... gently but firmly cleaned around her eyes, being careful not to get water down behind them, since that could lead to trouble on down the road with her sleep eyes.  Her eyes were even more beautiful and brighter when I was done.  For some reason, she has glue on the sides of her head and in her hairline that didn't come off during her first scrub down - I will have to work on this a bit more in the future.  I tamed the hair down, but I will put the curl back in at a later time (it was pretty much gone anyway).  So here she sits on a towel on my bed after this point:

 
The dress has been laundered and is in the process of repairs.  I don't know that I can restore it back to its original state, but for now I thought the sleeves could be hemmed up to be even, at least, and go from there.  So this project is going on the back burner for a while until her leg and dress are fixed and she gets those nice, soft curls back in her hair.  I can't wait for the final result.