Sasha sundresses and a touch of South Africa

Today, before I posted my donation to the Ann Chandler Raffle doll for the 2025 Sasha Doll Festival, I took some photos of 3 versions I've made of the traditional sundress with brettels from the Sasha Doll Clothes and Patterns book.

This gave me a good reason to dress Trudi in her summer outfit, new to her, though actually made back in 2017 as a prototype test of the enlarged pattern before I made the sundress for Dorisanne's Emmalee Rosie in 2017. Earlier this year the prototype dress and hat returned to me from Laura who had sold her studio doll Sela who had tried out the prototype for me.

Melanie (my Cora) has a shweshwe dress using the same fabric colour and pattern combination I used for Emmalee Rose. I dressed Miranda (blonde Green dress girl) in the Ann Chandler raffle donation outfit.

Miranda in the shweshwe protea dress for the Ann Chandler doll, Trudi in her sundress (fabric from a skirt I once made for myself) and Melanie in her shweshwe dress

Two entirely different colourways of shweshwe sundresses on Miranda and Melanie

In April our family spent just over 2 weeks in South Africa for my niece's wedding, which was a long road trip from Cape Town, in the heart of the Karoo (I made a handfasting stole they used and the dress I wore for the wedding). 

While we were staying in the tiny hamlet of Nieu-Bethesda over the Easter weekend where the wedding took place in the autumnal forest on a beautiful day, I commissioned a tote bag made by the Bethesda Arts Centre sewing co-operative based at the Bushman Heritage Museum. They had made incredible fabric collage wall hangings depicting different Bushman stories and folklore, and every guest bedroom at the Bathesda Tower Bed and Breakfast had gorgeous fabric collage cushions, they had some for sale along with some tote bags, but none of the tote bags had the panel I really liked with the ostriches. When I was a toddler and we visited an Ostrich farm at Oudtshoorn, I apparently called them 'ostrips'! So Yvonne, one of the creative fabric artists, who also served us our breakfast every morning, showed me a selection of panels she had already sewn but not yet turned into cushions or tote bags and I was able to choose my ostriches! The panel is actually also an outside pocket for the tote bag. It is almost too wonderful to use but I did use it while we were travelling about in South Africa. Now it hangs on a door in our home waiting for me to use it again. So I did use it for the photo shoot involving the Sasha dolls in their sundresses. Melanie's dress in particular matches the colours on the tote bag very well.

Miranda, Trudi and Melanie pose in front of the tote bag (hanging on a picture)

Shweshwe sundresses with the ostriches on the tote bag

My pair of ostriches (ostrips) on my Nieu-Bethesda tote bag by fabric artist Yvonne Merrington

Nieu-Bethesda is known for The Owl House (curiously haunting sculptures by Helen Martins, Athol Fugard's play The Road to Mecca was inspired by it) and its Camino hiking trails in the Compassberg mountains. We did visit The Owl House on Easter Day just before a thundery rain storm, but I didn't photograph my 8 inch dolls there as I had intended, they stayed in my camera bag.

Donation to Ann Chander raffle doll for 2025 festival

Miranda in the protea sundress for the Ann Chandler raffle doll

We are not attending the 2025 Sasha Doll Festival in the USA as we've had an overseas trip already this year. My contribution to the festival is an outfit for the raffle doll in memory of Ann Chandler, the raffle doll is being organised by Marti. She stipulated the following challenge for the raffle doll outfits:

Calling all talented makers: I am coordinating a raffle doll in honor of Ann Chandler and would love to have some wonderful donations. (We already have a doll!) In order to honor Ann Louise Chandler and her aesthetic, I am requesting that the donation follows ONE (or more!) of these parameters:

1. made out of one of Ann's patterns OR
2. made of recycled, used, etc fabric OR
3. made in a very traditional style (like you'd see on a studio doll) OR
4. Sewn by hand (yikes, I know!)

If you are a knitter, all bets are off and you can make whatever you'd like since Ann didn't knit much, so no guidelines apply!

Let me know if you'd like to participate or have any questions.

I met Ann Chandler at previous festivals, she was so knowledgeable and kind. I corresponded with Marti about what I would make and ended up picking a traditional style outfit from the Sasha Dolls Clothing and Patterns book (Ann Louise Chandler, Susanna E. Lewis with Anne Votaw), some recycled fabric and some hand sewing (though mostly machine sewn).

The traditional style outfit is the Sasha sundress with brettels on page 87 of the patterns book. I added a pair of underpants (also from the patterns book) and a very wide brimmed sunhat. The brim came out wider than an earlier sunhat I made because some of the fabric I chose had quite a large print on it for dolls and would have looked odd with a narrow brim.

The fabrics I chose were a remnant piece from my stash, source unknown, which I had previously used as the plain fabric in a complicated mix of fabrics in dress I made for my younger daughter when she was 10. The piece I had left over was enough to use for the plain fabric part of the sundress and I picked two shweshwe fabric pieces by Coral Tree Fabrics (South Africa) which matched the plain red almost denim washed look of the plain fabric - one (the bigger print) features South Africa's national flower the protea, and the other much smaller floral leaf print of an unidentified species.

In these photos Miranda models the red and white sundress.

I hope the winner of the Ann Chandler raffle doll has fun with all the outfits and the doll, I'm sure it will be a spectacular tribute to Ann.

Back view of the protea sundress

Patterned view of the protea sunhat

Inside lining of the protea sundress using the small print shweshwe fabric

back view of protea sundress, underpants and inside hat 

The protea sundress set for the Ann Chandler raffle doll

Sasha exhibition for a local literary festival

Every year the town where we live holds a 2 week literary festival in late January/early February, with a variety of events, mainly talks about books, literary topics or illustrated visits to places around the world plus some musical events with a literary flavour. 

I have participated before, sometimes giving talks (about our street organ and the church organ), mostly attending talks by others, and also playing in our church band in an interactive concert for children (Shake, Rattle and Sing). 

As the Sasha Festival was held locally last year, we created our two Dress a Sasha displays with their much more solid backdrops than we had been able to do for USA Sasha festivals, and we couldn't quite bare to dismantle them after all the work we put into them, so Laura, Miranda, Nicholas James and Timothy have stayed on display in our house ever since in their costumes. This was partly because I had the germ of an idea for the local literary festival. Petrana's theme of English Garden had prompted me to illustrate a favourite story book and my daughter to recreate a pre-Raphaelite painting about an English legend. We also had our 2012 English Sasha Festival Dress a Sasha entries to use, especially as one of them depicts a local nursery rhyme.

At one point I contemplated a talk to explain our displays and the versatility of Sasha Morgenthaler's doll creation for telling stories but a talk was likely to only be attended by adults. What I really wanted was to put on a mini exhibition which would encourage engagement with the themes and stories illustrated by our Sasha dolls and perhaps encourage people to try their hand at creating stories with dolls, props and toys. So I devised what I called a story time and literary treasure trail to complement the exhibition.

I negotiated to use a museum display cabinet already in the local library, it usually displays certificates and trophies won by our local Gardening group who beautify the town. The group very kindly removed all their items from the cabinet for what we thought would be 2 weeks. I think they were happy to do it when I explained two of the displays featured gardens, also they're a lovely group of people.

The day before the festival began, I took a couple of hours off work to set up the exhibition display. First the library manager and I had to adjust the level of the suspended glass shelves in the cabinet, which meant removing both glass shelves (thick heavy toughened glass but we didn't want to drop them!) then adjusting the support rods then placing one shelf back and safely storing the other shelf. This is because I needed height for the displays. I had spent the previous weekend gathering everything needed for the 2012 displays and substituting a couple of items which we no longer owned (a soft toy cow and toy dog for Hey diddle diddle), plus doing some boot swapping because I had reused the 2012 long black boots in 2024 and they were definitely needed with the 2012 outfit.

Setting up the 4 displays was a lot of fun and very satisfying. It was also gratifying to have the positive reactions of the library staff when they came to see how it was going. Then the library manager helped me put up the trail clues around the library walls, her enthusiasm and excitement was infectious. I had an answer sheet for people to use and place into a box for a prize draw once the trail is taken down.

The library manager has promoted the trail and exhibition locally, with the result that one of the local junior schools decided to bring a class of children to use the exhibition to support a creative project they are working on, apparently they brought another class the following week, after the literary festival was over. It turned out parents asked the library to keep the trail and exhibition up for a few weeks longer so they could use it for a half term activity. We checked with the literary festival organisers plus the gardening group and town council who all agreed it could stay up for longer. I had a lovely email from one of the gardening group who did the trail with her 12 year old grandson, they both enjoyed it. The lights in the display cabinet were repaired shortly after we set up the display by one of the gardening group, then PAT tested to ensure they were safe to use.

As two of the displays feature nursery rhymes, the library manager and I brain-stormed ideas of how to use those with the youngest children who visit the library for story time. I happened to mention that we have some old nursery rhymes arranged for our street organ and showed her pictures of the organ. The result was the fun we had at the weekly story time session during the literary festival - we brought the street organ into the library for the children, their parents and grandparents to enjoy singing along to the nursery rhymes we had, plus singing others we don't yet have on the street organ. My husband now has a list of another 9 nursery rhymes to arrange and add to the 6 we already play! This session was also part of the literary festival (though the library does story time every week, the two in the literary festival had special literary themes).

So for your enjoyment, in this post are photos of the Sasha dolls on display, plus some photos of the trail sheets around the inside of the library.

We're already discussing a display and trail for next year, possibly featuring our 2017 and 2022 Sasha festival Dress a Sasha entries.

Hey diddle diddle - updated from the 2012 Dress a Sasha assembled by my then 8 year old daughter

Fair Rosamund - 2024 Dress a Sasha by my daughter 

Fair Rosamund and Hey diddle diddle on the upper shelf

Ride a Cock Horse - my updated 2012 Dress a Sasha display

Ride a Cock Horse

Reuben as the ostler

A Secret Garden - my 2024 Dress a Sasha

Mary, Dickon and Colin in the Secret Garden

The Secret Garden and Ride a Cock Horse in the display cabinet

Library books of nursery rhymes, dolls houses and The Secret Garden

The literary trail sheets were on walls and windows around the library.

Start of the literary trail Sheets 1, 2 and 3

Sheets 4 and 5

Sheets 6 and 7

Sheets 8 and 9

Sheet 10

Sheets 11 and 12

Sheet 13

Sheets 14, 15 and 16 then instructions to go upstairs for the next sheets

Sheet 17

Sheet 18

Sheets 19 and 20

Sheets 21, 22, 23 and 24 on the wall beside the display cabinet

The display cabinet from the side

Today, as half term is over, my daughter and I removed the displays from the cabinet and adjusted the shelves back to their former positions in readiness for the gardening group certificates and trophies.

I took these photos just before we removed the doll displays earlier today after 5 weeks on display in the library.

Fair Rosamund and Hey diddle diddle with the lights on in the cabinet

The Secret Garden and Ride a Cock Horse just before we removed them from the cabinet

The display cabinet open and lit up just before we removed the displays

Me with the doll display just before we removed it today

Knitting my childhood outfit for Trudi

At the end of 2023 I decided to attempt a replication of an outfit my Nanna had knitted for my second birthday gift - a top and skirt with straps. I searched for the pattern she had used but wasn't able to find the exact pattern online, though I did find similar vintage patterns for knitted skirts with straps and knitted blouses which I was able to adapt and rescale for a 20 inch Sasha Studio doll. I commissioned some sandals to roughly match those I wore in one of the photos of me wearing the original outfit (thank you Lisa Hartley).

I bought 2 ply jumper weight Jamiesons & Smith of Shetland yarn (purchased via Woolwarehouse) to make the outfit and plotted out the flower garland design for the skirt on a spreadsheet grid, which is the tool I use for plotting out stranded knitting patterns. I don't think I got the proportions of the skirt and flower garland band quite right, and the skirt is a bit longer than the 'just above knee' look I had as a child. I knitted socks in finer yarn (1 ply), by Jamiesons of Shetland.

Trudi has had the outfit for several months now - I finished it before the Sasha Festival in Milton Keynes during June but was too busy and stressed about job issues to do anything about photographing it at the time. So at the close of 2024 it seems a fitting time to look back and reflect on this creative project before planning future craft projects for 2025 (after I finish knitting a current project for one of my daughters). 

I have photographed Trudi standing on the quilt given to me by my friend JoAnn when we attended the 2022 Sasha Doll festival in the USA. Despite adjusting the colours a bit on the computer, the skirt colour looks more orange in the photo than it does in real life.

Photo of toddler me in the original outfit with Trudi wearing the replica knitted outfit

Me wearing the knitted outfit on my second birthday

Me wearing the knitted outfit outdoors in the street where I grew up in Cape Town

Gigi meets my Heather Maciak girls

Gigi, my 8" Ruby Red Galleria doll, is the latest of my little collection of 8 and 8.5 inch dolls from various different makers - Heather Maciak, Heidi Plusczok, Kruselings and Ruby Red Galleria. The three Patsi dolls I have by Heidi are slightly taller than the others however their clothes and shoes fit the four Heather Maciak dolls and I have discovered the shoes also fit Gigi. The Kruselings have plastic shoes and longer feet. They have very slim bodies, so some of their commercially made clothes probably will not fit the named artist created dolls.

After photographing Gigi receiving her new grunge outfit, today I got Jenny, Lexie, Annie and Emily out of their box and redressed them for Christmas/winter. Jenny and Lexie were excited to at last try on the ice skates which Heather sent for a them a few years ago when she was closing down her website and disposing of spare outfits.

These photos show the four Heather Maciak dolls with the Ruby Red Galleria doll, who is lightly taller than them (even with Jenny and Lexie wearing ice skates). Gigi has glued on eye lashes and painted facial features while the facial features including eyelashes of Jenny, Lexie, Annie and Emily are painted. It is interesting to compare them. Gigi has many moveable joints (shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, ankles and neck) so is very posable though ball-jointed dolls have very visible joints which look a little unnatural, while although the others are 5 jointed dolls (neck, shoulders and hips), they are very expressive in their poses.

L-R: Emily, Gigi, Lexie, Jenny, Annie

L-R: Emily, Gigi, Lexie

Jenny and Annie

The only way to view Heather's wonderful website now is on the Wayback machine, the complete website was a wonderful catalogue of all her gorgeous doll creations and outfits. Gigi's grunge outfit is definitely more 'edgy' than the traditional children's clothes worn by my four Heather Maciak dolls. I'm not sure what Heather would think if I made grunge or 'goth' inspired outfits for Lexie, Jenny, Annie and Emily (both my grown up daughters wear goth these days).

Merry Christmas outfit for Gigi

I was looking for a particular outfit for my newest to me doll, the 8" tall Gigi by Ruby Red Galleria. It was the grunge outfit for Ten Ping/Gigi dolls. After making enquiries in a doll group, it turned out my Sasha friend Fran had two of the outfit and she sent me one as a Christmas gift all the way from the USA! 

As you can see, Gigi and Bouncer were keen to open the gift but had to wait until Christmas Day. It was only in the evening, after singing carols in the morning in church, Christmas dinner, all family gifts had been exchanged and we had watched the newest Wallace and Gromit adventure on TV, that I finally allowed myself the fun of photographing Gigi enjoying her new outfit.

Gigi and Bouncer contemplate the parcel from the USA

The exciting parcel from Fran

"Wow" exclaimed Gigi when she saw the outfit in its box

Gigi dressed herself as Bouncer looked on

Gigi just after she had put on the boots

Gigi in the grunge outfit from Fran

Gigi on Christmas Day in her new outfit

The outfit includes a tartan skirt, a black strapless tank top, frilly knickers, black socks, black boots with red hearts and laces, the brown leather jacket and a black studded handbag (purse).

Thank you so much Fran for your kindness and generosity. Both my daughters have voted this outfit as very cool and one they would wear themselves.

Merry Christmas everyone!