Sasha Celebration Weekend 2018 - Part 1

At last it was time to meet up with many Sasha friends again - I collected my younger daughter from school and we drove straight away to Nottingham, collecting Gillian from the station on the way.  We arrived at 5.45 pm and were soon unloading our Sasha dolls into our room.

First we found Janet and Tricia so we could set up our Fanfare band at the end of the Red Carpet Display, Mary joined us as we placed her beautiful flute player into the scene and together we admired the amazing outfits and dolls (included hair styles) on the other Red Carpet dolls and made plans for the live Fanfare band to rehearse the next day.

Louis Armstrong, Animal and Janet the flautist in the Fanfare Band

We had missed the £1 bazaar before dinner because it was held when we arrived, however we were soon meeting and chatting with other friends as we gathered for dinner.  Mary played her flute at intervals during dinner much to everyone's delight, we've never had live music before at the SCW.

Mary playing flute for our entertainment at dinner

After dinner Jocelyn gave a fascinating illustrated talk all about Frido and Trendon Sasha eyes and how they changed over time.

Friday evening dinner at the SCW

Tricia introduces Jocelyn for her talk about Frido/Trendon eye styles

On Saturday morning we met up with more Sasha friends at breakfast before setting up our craft table.

Louisa and baby Amy at breakfast

Gillian's childhood babies at breakfast

Our table was right beside the Red Carpet display, alongside our Fanfare band, I was relieved to see that Reuben had not dropped his trumpet during the night and Edmund was looking as wild as ever alongside the cool elegance of Janet, Mary's flute player.

This year all the craft kits were given to Janet and Tricia to sort into the gift bags so all we needed on our craft tables were the display materials and any tools/accessories needed to complete the craft kit, so it didn't take long to set up.

Abacus craft table before everyone arrived

Baby Nina holding her Abacus alongside the big abacus

Alan set up his time lapse camera on a stand alongside our table to take photos for 45 minutes (900 pictures apparently) which were later compressed into 30 seconds of film showing the progress of the crafters (I cannot share the video as it is unlisted).  The other two tables in our room were Jenny teaching smocking and Laura with her embroidered denim bag, in the other room Mary was demonstrating how to make fishtail plaits/braids, Judith was running a ballerina outfit (tutu) making workshop (she had provided the leotards ready made for the tutu) and Janet was teaching how to make an origami doll in decorated papers.

Fishtail plait/braid table

Ballerina outfit table

Embroidered denim bag table

Smocking table

The crafters were busy all morning and people seemed to enjoy making the little abacus.  I was personally delighted that it was possible for a person who is partially sighted to make the abacus and I adapted the table height for one person who could not sit down due to a back injury (I put my large plastic box on the table to bring the height up to a better level for her).  The younger girls were also able to manage the abacus without difficulty too.  Everyone who did the abacus did their own patterns for the beads, which was fun to observe, one child insisted on doing her abacus to the power of 8 not 10 (she didn't want 10 beads in a row).

Abacus table crafters 1

Abacus table crafters 2

Abacus table crafters 3

Abacus table crafters 4

Abacus table crafters 5

Abacus table crafters 6

Abacus table crafters 7

Ballerina tutu table crafters 1

Ballerina tutu table crafters 2

Origami doll crafters table 1

Origami doll crafters table 2

Abacus table crafters 8

Abacus table crafters 9

Abacus table crafters 10

Abacus table crafters 11

Abacus table crafters 12

Abacus table crafters 13

Abacus table crafters 14

Smocking table crafters 1

Embroidered denim bag crafters 1

Abacus table crafters 15

Abacus table crafters 16

Abacus table crafters 17

My daughter's origami doll

With her origami doll

Abacus table crafters 18

Abacus table crafters 19

Abacus table crafters 20

Abacus table crafters 21

Smocking table crafters 2

Embroidered denim bag crafters 2

We stopped for lunch at 1pm and tidied up (this didn't take long).  Then it was time for the Grand Raffle draw - which I shall write about in Part 2.