Sewing for Sasha Festival 2013 Raffle

I wish we could attend the 2013 Sasha Doll Festival in the USA, however funds won't allow, so the best we can do to participate is send donations for the Children's Fund Auction, or main Raffle or Helper items.  I was contemplating sewing or knitting something to honour Sasha collector Erica who was my swap partner last Christmas - sadly she died earlier this year.  However just as I was considering ideas, along came an email from another England based Sasha collector telling me about the donation for the one of the main Raffle prizes which the English collectors are putting together to celebrate the wonderful time we had at the 2012 festival, and I was glad to join in.

The message was addressed to both me and my younger daughter, and we both got to vote on the name of the doll who is crossing the Atlantic with her marvellous wardrobe of clothes and accessories.  A list of items to donate was included and we had fun choosing what we wanted to send.

My daughter decided to make the gardening apron and gym bag so I dug out some fabric from my collection for these.

From her birthday pattern book my girl found an apron sized for a Barbie or Sindy doll and I showed her how to scale this up on some paper.  She wanted a pocket in the front of the apron (to hold the seed packets or gardening tools) so she cut out a rectangle for this.  I showed her how to use the iron to double fold the edges so there would be no frayed fabric then helped her with the machine stitching (the curved bits were the trickiest).  Once the pocket was stitched on she found some embroidered transfers in my sewing box and arranged these on the pocket, then ironed them carefully in place.  The finishing touch was stitching on the ribbons - I showed her how to hand stitch these in place and she did a great job.

close up of the gardening apron pocket, with the iron on transfers

hand stitched on ribbon ties, sewn by DollMum's daughter

The gardening apron, made by DollMum and daughter

The gym bag needed to have the doll's name embroidered on it.  My girl was delighted that the most popular name chosen was the one she had picked (my favourite came lower down the list).  I showed her how to use the lost thread cross stitch method - using soluble cross stitch canvas to provide the guide for the stitching, then wetting it and removing the threads with tweasers to leave the cross stitch in place on the base fabric (apparently some soluble canvas literally dissolves on wetting, water dissolves the glue holding the canvas together on the canvas I use).  She decided that the doll had to have ballet shoes on the bag and the Olympic Rings, to celebrate 2012.  Once the embroidery was complete we stitched cord runners in the tops of the bag, stitched the sides of the bag together and had fun working out how to thread the bag correctly for drawstring operation!

my girl trimming threads on the gym bag

trimming threads carefully

the gym bag, made by DollMum and daughter

The Olympic side of the gym bag, made by DollMum and daughter

One very proud young sewer, with the gym bag and apron

Rosemarie S sent me the Liberty fabric for the dress (I wanted to do the smocked dress) and I was pleased to see that it was the same fabric as had featured in the 2012 Sasha Festival programme - Berry F dress (on page 23), however I chose to use a different pattern from the programme (Red B) as I wanted to do puffed sleeves and no collar, and my own design of smocked stitching.  I made a pair of matching knickers from the remaining fabric to go with the dress.  I am pleased with the results and Rosemarie made kind comments in email correspondence.

Miranda models the dress, gym bag and apron for Charlotte

Miranda models the gym bag and dress in our spring garden

Knickers to match the smocked dress, by DollMum

Back view of the smocked dress, by DollMum

close up of the back view of the smocked dress, by DollMum

Miranda models the smocked dress, by DollMum

Miranda looking wistful in the smocked dress

close up of the smocking, by DollMum

I checked with Rosemarie before publishing this - I didn't want to spoil the surprise for those lucky enough to attend the 2013 Sasha festival.  As our contribution is just one small part of this wonderful Raffle prize, this post will just provide a taster of what is coming their way in July and Rosemarie is happy for me to share this on my blog.