Sasha Celebration - part 1

The overwhelming response to my previous post about collecting treasure has been lovely - thank you to those who have read and reflected on what I said about why we collect things.

To celebrate our small Sasha collection we took all 8 of our Sasha and Gregor dolls to the Sasha Celebration weekend organised by Janet and Lorraine (with help from Tricia and Theresa) from 15th-17th May, at a hotel near Nottingham.  As soon as we heard about this event last October my daughter and I knew we had to attend, and reserved our places.  Subsequently I offered a craft workshop to the organisers as the theme of the weekend was to focus on crafts for our dolls then had lots of fun designing and creating a prototype for approval before going ahead with plans, but more about that in another post.

Although many of the other 28 attendees arrived earlier in the afternoon on Friday, my daughter didn't finish school until 3:00 pm, so it wasn't until 3:30 pm that we set off up the M1 to Nottingham.  The traffic was slow, so the journey took longer than hoped, however by 6:00 pm we were checking into the hotel and meeting the other collectors who were beginning to gather for dinner.

Reuben gave Henry a much longer rope ladder for his tree house, however I didn't take a photo of the handover.  Conversation time at dinner was a good opportunity to get to know other Sasha collectors and enjoy the food.  We brought Laura and Reuben to dinner.  Laura was wearing my first attempt at smocking outfit which I made before I made the smocked dress for the 2013 Sasha Festival doll.

enjoying pudding

Lorraine had brought her Makie doll 'Wren' to the dinner table, as well as the famous Henry.  My girl had great fun posing Wren, whom Lorraine had dressed as Velma from Scooby Doo.  The Makie dolls are 3D printed, you can design their faces online and then they are printed.

playing with Wren, the Makie doll pretending to be Velma from Scooby Doo

Wren strikes a pose

Wren sits on a wine glass

Laura and Wren

Wren became more bold and sat on Laura's head!  I'm not sure what Laura thought of this.

Wren sits on Laura

This turned into high jinks when Laura sat on my daughter's head with Wren on top, much to everyone's amusement.

A tower of dolls and girl!

Henry remembered his horse riding friend Laura from the adventures in our back garden last year.

Henry and Laura get reacquainted, I think they forgot to pour the wine

Someone is getting interested in the wine

Two beautiful Sasha's at dinner

After dinner, some of us went to the hall where the raffle and the Studio Doll project had been set up (some of the others had seen them before dinner).  Those dolls who came to dinner played some games while we admired Janet's Studio Doll project and the raffle.

Playing together after dinner

Reuben wearing a water lily made from a table napkin

Playing party games

Doll photography

Dancing the conga

Admiring Janet's Studio Doll project

some of the Studio Doll project dolls

the twins from the Studio doll project

Amazing beaded dress and her eyes... dreamy

The beaded dress in full

I took more photos of the Studio Doll project the following day, which will be in a future post.

A glimpse of the raffle, before all the prizes were added

The raffle doll

The raffle items on the Friday evening

Then it was off to bed for my daughter while I sat quietly in our room and knitted to finish an outfit for the sales the next day.  I managed to finish the cardigan but still had the headbands to make, so I knew the next day was going to be very busy.  More about that in part 2.