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