Chat n Snap 2022

This year Dee changed the theme of the Chat 'n Snap in response to the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The idea was to find a picture of the late Queen, King Charles or any of the British Royal family and replicate it with a Sasha doll or two. We had done some sorting through our large collection of clothes for Sasha in the week before the event and I had no time to make something new. We chose to depict Princess Charlotte as a baby in a smocked dress with a ribbon in her hair, because that style of clothes is regularly used for dressing younger members of the British Royal family. My younger daughter carefully styled baby Daisy's hair after dressing her in a smocked dress made by the late, lovely Marilyn H.

Baby Daisy as Princess Charlotte

Princess Charlotte with the Scottish piper

The display this year was in front of the St Ippolyts wall hanging rather than on the stage. It was a small but lovely display of several dolls depicting associations with royalty.

The Scottish bagpiper piping for the King

Katherine, Princess of Wales

A close up of the Princess of Wales

Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis

Modern royal children always wear very classic traditional clothes for official occasions, such as the baptism of Prince Louis

The late Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Platinum Jubilee this year

Jennie W made a replica of the late Queen wearing her Platinum Jubilee outfit

The late Queen Elizabeth II with her corgi, handbag and Paddington bear

A very regal outfit for the late Queen

Many other dolls had come to the Chat 'n Snap and were displayed on a couple of tables nearby. We had changed some of our dolls into fresh outfits, so Trendon Elliott got to wear one of the Sasha Festival souvenir outfits (the snow suit), Nicholas James put on jeans to go with the rainbow hoodie I had bought for him at the 2021 Chat 'n Snap, Miranda wore an outfit she won on the raffle at the Sasha Festival, Laura still wanted to wear her goth style outfit she had won in the raffle at the Dolly Jolly and Florence wore a dress I won in the 2021 Chat 'n Snap plus a jacket I bought at the festival. Toddler Louisa wore an outfit I bought from Lynne F at the Festival and Edmund wore his union jack waistcoat made some years ago by my younger daughter. 

At the Dolly Jolly in May we had won a baby Ginger on the raffle, along with her quilt, a second outfit and a teddy bear. Baby Amy wore the second outfit (made by Rosie Laird) and they shared two pairs of green / lime shoes, wearing one of each pair while playing with their monkey (knitted for me by a church friend last Christmas). While she was admiring our red haired baby twins at the Chat 'n Snap, Jennie W suggested a name for our newer baby: Robin.

Our babies Amy and Robin with their monkey, toddlers Louisa and Edmund, with Trendon Elliott, Nicholas James, Miranda, Laura and Florence behind them, surrounded by some Little Darlings, Teddy's BJD and Sasha dolls, with Hans the studio doll in the background

Alice's boys dressed in their shorts

Some of Alice's dolls on display

I think these Sasha dolls also belonged to Alice

Hans the studio doll, Curly and the rare Trendon toddlers

Gotz and Trendon girls in cardigans, with a pair of rerooted girls in the background

Three girls wearing name tags, plus a Sasha who I think belonged to one of the children attending the event

Three little ones with some unique hair styles and colours

An assortment of Sasha dolls

The two Jackie Rydstrom rerooted girls

I didn't take photos of the sales tables this year, except for this one photo of Trisha's beautiful sewing and embroidery, before the sales officially opened.

Tricia's lovely girls and needlework

We had limited ourselves to only buying for the boys this time as our recent sort out of all our Sasha clothes revealed plenty of dresses and outfits for our girls, with far less choice for our boys. We bought two pairs of trousers (cargo pants and corduroy trousers) from Ginny, 13 Sasha World magazines from Jocelyn, a Christmas sweatshirt and a Christmas hoodie from Dollydoodles, and some gorgeous fabric and tiny buttons from Jane.

Teddy had brought his restringing equipment and spent much of the time restringing dolls for people, I got a ring side seat for taking photos as Teddy and Alice were at the same table as us for the day.

A beautiful No Philtrum girl was restrung ahead of being shipped overseas to her new owner

The notorious Curly had his arms restrung (too much use of your gavel Curly)

One of the dolls whose arms needed restringing was Hans the studio doll.

Hans before his arms were removed for restringing

Threading through the new elastic cord

Teddy restringing Hans

Tying the knot in the stringing

Hans being redressed after his arms were restrung

Hans being redressed

Hans holding up his arm to show he can do so!

Close up of Hans, photo taken with my macro lens to show his beautiful Sasha hand-painted eyes

Another doll who attended the Chat 'n Snap was Amelie, the very rare Sasha baby who is a life size version of a new-born infant, she is made of some kind of wax compound so has a translucency to her appearance which does make her look very fragile and lifelike. I held her while my daughter Dmd took photos of her with my macro lens and camera on the tripod.

Baby Amelie being held by DollMum

Baby Amelie

Baby Amelie

Close up of Baby Amelie, taken with the macro lens by DollMum's daughter

We were fortunate enough to win 5 prizes in the raffle (which raised £400). Our prizes were two Dollydoodles outfits (sweatshirt, tracksuit bottoms & beanie, plus jeggings), some fabric (blue fat quarters), a green patterned pinafore dress, a tartan skirt and red cardigan.

Thank you Dee and family for another very enjoyable Chat 'n Snap.

Dolly Jolly 2022 part 2

It was Picnic time at the Dolly Jolly!

The hotel had kindly given us the use of a patio and lawn area beside the hotel leisure centre for the picnic and everyone brought along their food, drink and doll contributions.

The doll picnic display was set up on the grass, there were even some picnic games.

We feasted and chatted in the bright, hot sunshine (there were no umbrellas over the patio tables), took photos of the dolls having their picnic fun then some of us moved into the shade to continue chatting. As is so often the case with picnics, there was far too much food and some people had brought lovely home made cakes to share.

Betsy Schoenhut supervised Roxane, Louisa and baby Nina at the picnic

Edmund was being taught how to play croquet by Reuben, Timothy and another boy

The croquet game was fun

Melanie and Laura played Quoits in the bright sunshine

Two adorable little girls treated their teddy bears to a picnic

picnic hamper from the raffle, games and food for these Sasha and Gregor dolls

There was plenty of room on this picnic rug for more doll friends to join

Deep conversations were had at the picnic

A hamper of delicious picnic food

A picnic party on the rug for a variety of doll friends

Another picnic gathering

After playing games in the sunshine, Timothy, Melanie, Reuben and Laura were glad to catch some shade on the picnic rug before it was time to pack up and go indoors

After tidying away all the picnic food and displays, the afternoon room hopping session started at 4pm.

The wonderful collection of dolls house dolls in Room 6

Two of the dolls house dolls in Room 6

Dolls house children playing in Room 6

Dolls house children going for a walk in Room 6

The dolls house sailor with his tea drinking wife in Room 6

The sleeping dolls house baby in its finely knitted clothes in Room 6

The wonderful Canadian dolls house family by Anne Rigler, Montana 1986 in Room 6

A dolls house family from the owner's childhood in Room 6

A Petitcollin Minouche by Sylvia Natterer in Room 6

Sasha in red gingham in Room 6

Sasha and Gregor conversation in Room 6

Some much loved childhood dolls in Room 6

I wonder what they were talking about in Room 6

Cuddly soft handmade rag dolls, Gregor, baby Sasha and Sasha in Room 7

Smart Gregor wearing his jumpsuit and bandana in Room 7

Baby Sasha and Sasha wearing protective sunhats in Room 7

Three Sasha babies with their toys in Room 8

A selection of handmade dolls clothes, plus Zwergnase doll and another doll in Room 8

The owner of the dolls in the nineth room I visited preferred for her dolls to not feature on my public blog, though she was kind enough to allow photos for me to show my daughter, who was busy revising in our room for her examinations.

Bettina dolls in Room 10

Sasha, Kathe Kruse, Alta Moda dolls and a teddy bear in Room 10

The repaired Kathe Kruse doll in Room 10

Two early Barbie dolls in Room 10

Sasha, Gregor and Alta Moda dolls in Room 10

The evening meal on Saturday night was followed by Dolly Bingo, which proved to be a lot of fun.

Dolly Bingo prizes on display again on the Saturday evening

Some of the prizes for Dolly Bingo

The gorgeous rag doll was not a prize, the prize was a promise the maker would create a bespoke rag doll for the winner.

The wonderful Pirate girl outfit Dolly Bingo prize

The late Susanna Lewis designed and hand knitted this lovely prize, which included a photo of Susanna with her daughters

The Sasha baby repainted and rewigged by Di Dailey

We brought several of our dolls to the dinner, as we had not been able to have a room hopping display due to examinations revision.

L-R: Joy and Kolisi in his SA Rugby outfit (Kruselings), Edmund, Roxane, Louisa, Trendon Elliott, Miranda, Nicholas James and my SCW Charity Doll Russell

Roxane met with the other little Minouche doll at dinner

My SCW charity doll sat peacefully as Roxane and her new Minouche friend got to know each other

We were impressed with this Sasha dressed as Calamity Jane, who came to the dinner.

Sasha dressed as Calamity Jane

We were amazed and delighted to win two of the Dolly bingo prizes. My daughter was watched by several people as she carefully dressed Laura in her new outfit during a later Bingo round. The skirt is patchwork squares stitched together and the treasure bag contains treasure!

Laura in her Pirate Girl outfit

Baby Ginger with teddy, additional outfit by Rosie Laird and patchwork quilt

Our dolls after the Dolly Bingo

The following morning after breakfast and before saying goodbye to everyone, we took Laura and Florence outside to the hotel bandstand for some photos.

Laura and Florence at the Bandstand

Laura and Florence at the Bandstand

Laura the pirate girl and Florence in her windmill dress

The Dolly Jolly was such good fun - thank you to Janet, Tricia and Shelley for all your work in organising the weekend.