Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 6

And so to the last morning of the Sasha Doll Festival.  We all met for Brunch in the downstairs room at 9:00 am.  My girl and I sat with several people we'd not spent time with before, so met more new friendly people, some of whom had travelled all the way from Australia for the festival!

Our table gifts were a wonderful completion to the Olympic themed set - little hooded tracksuits with London 2012 embroidered on them, a Union flag tote bag which contained a medal, a cup and a little Union flag on a cocktail stick, perfect for sport mad Sasha's to wave!  Christine and Chris Meatyard were the table hosts at our table and had provided a beautiful cake stands with little cakes for the dolls - so they can have a Jubilee tea party.  Nicholas James insisted on wearing his new white tracksuit straight away, while the red one is ready for when one of the girls get sporty (there was also a blue tracksuit).

A lovely waif

A lovely waif wearing her funky outfit

Table gifts of fun masks at another table

Peeping through the banisters at all the fun

Dawn did some thank you speeches and handed out little gifts to those who had been instrumental in helping her make the festival so successful.  Heidi talked about next year's festival, which will be back in the USA, and thanked Dawn for all she had done this year.

Dawn gives her thank you speeches

Brunch together

Our table

Girls playing beside the table

Heidi thanks Dawn

Then it was time to draw the helper raffle. Once again the children helped, this time bringing the prizes and the pots of tickets down from the Library where each pot was tipped into a bowl and a ticket selected for the winner.  My girl was thrilled to win two dresses (one of them she drew her own ticket, much to the enjoyment of everyone, Boo had done the same and their reactions were fun to watch).

Look at those excited faces

Then big tension while Anna Doggart drew the three special raffle prizes.


First was Amelia, the Cora girl with her red, white and blue American ensemble

Lucky Laura - her face was a picture!

Then Anna drew the ticket for William going to school

He was won by Annette, so will be travelling to Germany

Last of all Anna drew the ticket for the baby with her layout.

Joyce was amazed to win.

My girl was disappointed that she hadn't won the baby herself, but the chances were small (we'd bought the minimum number of tickets).

Then all of a sudden it was time to say goodbye to all our new Sasha friends.  We lingered for a little while, took some final photos and phoned for our lift (the caravan was all packed and almost ready to go).  While we were in the lobby having a final chat with Fran and Boo while we awaited our lift, the winner of many helper raffle items came up to us and asked if we would accept her giving my girl and Boo each one of her raffle prizes, she had so many and would have asked them to put them back but the raffle was going too fast for her to request this, so she gave my girl a little blue gingham dress with matching panties and hair bow on a clip.  What a lovely thing to do - thank you Diane S.  This particular dress has become Miranda's 'school dress' and is a big hit.

Farewell photo with new friends

I still have some photos to take of items we bought at the sales, and the dresses won in the raffle, but this is the end of my account of our first Sasha Doll Festival.  I would like to thank everyone who helped organise it - what a great event and I hope the next one is equally as enjoyable for the lucky people who are able to attend.

Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 5

On the way to lunch on Saturday we admired Dawn Law's display of the baby nursery.

Lunch was held in the normal restaurant, rather than downstairs to save messing about with the room layout which needed to stay the same as the morning.  We sat at the same table as Fran, Boo, Karol and Dawn, her daughter and grandchildren.  The table gifts were lovely - a red mug with a pen, both labelled with the Festival name, and containing more of the outfit - shorts and top for sport, with an Olympic theme.  Dawn, our table hostess, provided lovely knitted sweaters and matching hats as gifts, I got white and fawn while my girl got white and pale blue, perfect for Miranda.  I had a good conversation with Karol, who told me about the dress she had made for the Children's fund auction and handed out sweets from Maine.  Dawn had arranged for a beautiful cake to be made celebrating the festival.

writing with the new red pen

Our doll family on the lunch table

Karol's lovely Sasha doll

The festival cake

my girl says thank you to Dawn for the lovely gifts

the girls play with the dolls in new outfits from Dawn

Fran's beautiful doll

The CFA was back in the downstairs room.  The children were happily occupied all through the auction by holding up the items for everyone to see, and taking them to the table for packing up ready for new owners.  I watched all 2 1/2 hours of the auction, helped Jackie a little with putting the bagged up items in a plastic crate, took photos and made notes of how much each item sold for, as I knew I probably wouldn't be able to bid on the items I liked.  Sure enough, everything I wanted went over my budget but it was fun seeing other people bidding, and hearing Pat say 'but its for the children' when ever bidding was a bit slow or when she felt something was worth more than the current bid.

CFA before the start

CFA before the start

CFA before the start

the dress Fran won

CFA before the start

smocking by Catherine French

CFA before the start

Bagging up the auction items

Boo's new baby

the item I donated, awaiting its new owner

Pat in charge of the auction

I was very gratified that the item I had made and donated (the sleeping bag & nightwear set) went for a respectable £45, and Tina told me afterwards she was very pleased to win it (she wasn't the only bidder), which made the enjoyable effort of creating it worthwhile.  And my girl didn't come away from the Auction empty handed - all the young helpers were treated to a lucky dip and what a lucky one it was for Miranda, as my girl opened a parcel with a new dress, pants, shoes and hair ribbon which perfectly matched Miranda's eyes.

opening the lucky dip

Boo's lucky dip prize

Miranda in her new outfit, donated by Rosemary Shortell

The CFA raised over £6,800 for 3 local children's charities (including Helen & Douglas Hospice) which was brilliant.

We returned to the caravan for some food, then I brought both my girls to the evening sales which started at 7:00 pm.  I was looking for shoes and managed to purchase a pair of turquoise sandals by Jean Jenson, as well as some red boots, purple Mary Janes and some baby shoes of pale green from other sellers.  I also bought two smocked items from Ruth Hartley (a dress and pants for Florence, and rompers for baby Mabel), and two hats (a cowboy hat for Nicholas James and a French hat for Miranda) from Jackie.  I haven't yet taken photos of all these items and didn't take photos of the sales rooms. My red haired girl admired a beautiful rewigged red head on Ruth Hartley's stall, but we couldn't buy her unfortunately.  Having now seen several reds 'for real' now, I know what I'm looking for, but will have to save up.

Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 4

On Saturday morning we were treated to two very interesting talks.  The first was by a slightly nervous Marie, who showed us some brilliant slides of studio dolls and discussed in detail the history of Sasha studio dolls in particular.  Her slides showed the different faces which Sasha used, some of them more regularly than others.  She then unveiled her collection of Studio dolls in glass cases which we were able to photograph, what a glorious surprise to see them up close.

waiting for the first talk to begin

Marie gives her Studio doll talk

Eskimo Sasha studio dolls

Sasha Studio doll

A lovely pair of Sasha Studio dolls

Christine with her rare Sasha studio baby

rare Sasha studio baby

After the tea break Brenda Walton, the manager of the Trendon Factory, gave us a fascinating talk about the production and also showed us a BBC produced film of little Jenny watching her Gregor doll being made.  We were all pleased to know that Jenny still lives in the area near the factory and still has her Gregor.  It was quite entertaining when the hair was rooted into the doll's head by machine - the gasps and laughs around the room were quite audible, especially as we had learned all about the tedious task of rerooting the previous day - so fast and easy compared to the restoration process now.

Dawn Law with Ann Chandler

Brenda Walton talks of the early Sasha collector
who dressed the dolls to record a bygone era

the children busy colouring and drawing

Listening to Brenda

Some of Brenda's gorgeous Sasha Trendon collection

Some of Brenda's gorgeous Sasha Trendon collection

A lovely redhead from Brenda's collection

Another lovely redhead from Brenda's collection

My girl plays with our Sasha dolls

Before lunch, my daughter and I took the opportunity to look at the amazing Special Raffle prizes and the Helper Raffle.  We, like everyone else, were quite overwhelmed by the sight of the three prizes.  My girl wanted to win the baby, I liked the blond school boy and the American invasion Cora in equal measure, their collections of clothes and accessories were truly incredible.

On our way to lunch I got a chance to take a photo of the amazing themed display in the lobby with the cabinet doors open, so no glass reflections or door dividing the scene.

Children's Fund Auction next, but that will be in my next post.