Trudi - Part 1

When we visited Dorisanne Osborn in July 2017 after attending the Sasha Doll festival that year, we met some of her wonderful studio dolls. My daughter (Dmd) was smitten with one of them (Caroline/Meg) who subsequently found a home with our friend Peggy.

After our visit, I corresponded with Dorisanne about another doll she owned which she had not shown us. This doll had a small problem, namely a fine crack across her left eye. As Dorisanne explained in an email:

“When I purchased her in a Theriault auction she had a tiny crack by her eye which did not show at all. A few years ago, we had a long cold winter and when I looked at her (Trudi/Gertrud) the crack had spread. It still does not show unless you look at her very closely. She is a rare farm girl and is pictured in my book on pages 6, 16, and 24.”

The doll is called Gertrud or Trudi, named for Trudi Löffler/Loeffler who was Sasha Morgenthaler’s atelier assistant. She is a CI which means her body type is C (from the 1950s-70s Sasha used a synthetic moulding material for the hard bodied Studio dolls) and her face shape is Type I of the four shapes (I, II, III, IV).

A long layaway commenced in 2018 with the aim of collecting Trudi at the 2020 Sasha doll festival in Pittsburgh which we planned to attend, however the pandemic meant the 2020 Pittsburgh festival was postponed by a year (usually location and organisers change each year), and we were not able to attend it in 2021 because of travel restrictions as the worldwide pandemic continued. It was a relief that we were able to attend the 2022 Sasha Doll festival in Syracuse NY, so on our road trip from Newark Airport (via a town in Pennsylvania to see our 90 key mechanical concert organ again after previously seeing it in 2017) we visited Dorisanne in her new home and met her daughter Jeanne.

The day before our visit, Peggy visited Dorisanne and helped redress Trudi in her original farmgirl outfit in readiness for our arrival (she had been wearing an outfit by Ruth Hartley). Dorisanne presented Trudi to me in a special carrier bag with Sasha doll photos posted in the side pockets, she explained it would help when I carried her around at the festival, which it certainly did, because Trudi barely left my side.

When I first took Trudi out of her carrier bag I examined her carefully. I had only previously ever seen photos of her sent to me by Dorisanne and those in Dorisanne’s book. She has several items of clothing in her summer farmgirl outfit: a short sleeved white shirt, red and white striped pantaloons trimmed with red rick rack, a red/blue/white plaid underskirt, a denim blue weave overskirt, a red/blue/white check/plaid apron with embroidered pocket, grey knitted socks and lace up black leather boots, plus a pink/white plaid scarf which was over her head, though can also be used as a neck scarf. Her reddish-brown hair was loosely plaited/braided, one tied with a pale blue cord, the other with a white string, because Swiss mountain children as observed by Sasha were not wealthy so satin ribbons would not have been appropriate.

The fine crack across her left eye and bridge of her nose was the most obvious, there were a few other fine cracks on her head and neck including one on her right arm, however, they did not look bad and her beautiful face and eye painting make her very special. Once I had redressed her, we had tea, cake and conversation which included Dorisanne telling me more of Trudi’s story:

Trudi was auctioned by Theriault's in 1985 and purchased by Bambi Bovee who returned her to Theriault's in 1993 under the Gold Horse guarantee. When she reappeared in Theriault's auction again that year, Dorisanne bought her and named her after Sasha's assistant, Trudi (Gertrud) Loeffler/Löffler, and Dorisanne’s Aunt Gertrude.

We took some photos of Trudi with some of Dorisanne’s dolls and the Sasha dolls we had brought into the house with us, plus my SCW Charity Course doll Russell.

L-R Emmalee Rose, Russell, Melanie and Trudi

It was good putting Russell between Dorisanne’s two Sasha Course dolls which she had made under Trudi Löffler’s supervision in Sasha’s atelier in 1993. They are named Amelia and Frederick after Dorisanne's paternal grandparents.

Dorisanne's two Sasha Course dolls Amelia and Frederick, with Russell the SCW Charity Course doll my daughter and I made in 2019

Close up of Amelia, Russell and Frederick

I was also delighted that Emmalee Rose was wearing the shweshwe outfit I had made specially for her, as I had brought along Melanie who wearing the identical smaller version of the outfit, so we were able to photograph the two of them together.

Melanie with some of Dorianne's Sasha Studio dolls L-R Alice, Studio bebe Kit, Christopher Charles, Emmalee Rose and Melanie

Emmalee Rose and Melanie in matching shweshwe outfits

Dorisanne's dolls Alice, Studio bebe Kit and Christopher Charles

Emmalee Rose and Melanie in their matching shweshwe outfits.
Dorisanne made the bead necklace herself and had the shoes made to match.

Trudi with Dorisanne's Studio dolls: L-R Alice, Kit, Christopher Charles and Trudi

Trudi sits on Charlie's special chair with Dorisanne's Sasha Course dolls and Russell. Charlie was Dorisanne's late husband whom we met in 2017 and the wicker chair belonged to him. 

L-R back row Alice, Emmalee Rose, Christopher, Melanie and Trudi, front row Russell and bebe Kit are flanked by the two Sasha Course dolls Frederick and Amelia

Alice, Emmalee Rose and Christopher Charles

Emmalee Rose, Christopher Charles, Melanie and Trudi

Russell with Dorisanne's Sasha Course dolls and Studio bebe Kit

Charlie's special corner (featuring his sailing boat and chair) with me holding Trudi, Dorisanne, Dmd and Jeanne, and the dolls in the chairs

In my blog posts last year about the festival, I didn’t include photos of Trudi as I wasn’t ready to write about her at the time. Now I am sharing them, as they reveal some of the joy that Trudi brings.

Thank you Dorisanne for allowing me to adopt Trudi and for your patience with that long layaway. I am so happy to have been entrusted with Trudi. My next blog post will be about the gentle restoration to stabilise the fine cracks.

At the meet and greet 'ugly Christmas sweater' event on the first evening of the Sasha Doll Festival.
L-R Edmund, Russell, Louisa, Melanie, Florence and Trudi

Trudi with a Sasha Studio bebe on her lap at the Sasha Doll Festival, they look fascinated with each other

Anne Votaw cradling Trudi on the Saturday evening at the Sasha Doll Festival (Anne is one of the three authors of 3 books about Sasha dolls which every collector needs)

Anne and Trudi at the Sasha Doll Festival - I think Anne's smile expresses the sheer joy of Sasha Studio dolls

Trudi with some of my Sasha friends
L-R Fran, JoAnn, me holding Trudi, Dmd and Peggy on the last day of the 2022 Sasha Doll Festival

Our Sasha dolls and SCW Charity doll in our hotel room after the Sasha Doll Festival
L-R: Florence, Reuben, Laura, Russell the SCW Charity doll, Edmund, Nina, Louisa, Trudi, Timothy and Melanie

Bibliography

From Childhood to Sasha profile Number 4 - Dorisanne Osborn (2015), published by TwizelTheresa on The Sasha Emporium, 27 October 2015, available at https://thesashaemporium.org/2015/10/27/from-childhood-to-sasha-profile-number-4/ (accessed 20 April 2023)

Osborn, Dorisanne (1999) Sasha Dolls through the years, Gold Horse Publishing. ISBN 0-9112823-86-0

The Sasha Doll Festival website http://sashafestival.com/Home.html 

Information about Sasha Morgenthaler is available at the following websites:

http://sashamorgenthaler.org

http://www.sashadoll.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasha_Morgenthaler

Shweshwe for Emmalee Rose

After visiting Dorisanne in August 2017 during our USA adventures and seeing some of her wonderful Sasha dolls, I thought about what I could make for one of them as a thank you for 3 hours of happy and memorable doll discussions. 

Dorisanne with Emmalee Rose, August 2017

Dorisanne's favourite Sasha studio doll in her collection is a dark hard plastic girl whom she has called Emmalee Rose and it occurred to me that my stash of South African shweshwe fabric would look really good on this particular doll.  I had bought several fat quarters when visiting Cape Town in March 2017 from a super little shop (which doesn't have a website) in Observatory, Cape Town which specialises in African print fabrics.  My new collection of fabrics included some colour combinations I wouldn't have considered before when making clothes for dolls, the traditional original colours (indigo blue, brown & red) for shweshwe prints have branched out into some wonderful, vibrant prints.  On a doll, it is important to be careful about scale of pattern and colours, so I had picked out prints which were small enough to not overwhelm a doll.

Emily and Annie (Heather Maciak dolls) inspecting my pile of shweshwe in the Cape Town fabric shop, the pieces I used for this Studio doll project are at the bottom of this pile.

I didn't have a pattern for a studio doll dress, as I don't own any Sasha Studio dolls, so I needed accurate measurements and a doll willing to model for me, even from a distance.  I wanted the dress to be a surprise, so couldn't ask Dorisanne to send me the measurements.  Suzanne Lewis in the USA was very helpful and measured her hard plastic studio doll for me instead, then Laura Horner in the UK agreed that her studio doll of a similar size could try on the prototype dress before I cut the shweshwe.

I decided to use the sundress with brettels pattern in the Sasha dolls clothing and patterns book.  This pattern had the advantage of no sleeves which meant that if I got the sizing slightly wrong, the dress would be more forgiving than if the sleeve setting didn't allow enough space across the shoulders or the arms and arm holes.  Also, the origin of the fabric implied sunshine summer days, so a sundress was appropriate.

I scaled the pattern up using the scale and copy function on our printer (16" doll size to 20" doll size) then cut out all the pieces using some other patterned cotton fabric in my collection (tiny brown leaves on an off white background).  I made a reversible sunhat and underpants as well in the same fabric.  I trimmed the brettels with pink ribbon and made the tassels from pink embroidery thread.  I made careful measurements of the finished dress then put the outfit in the post to Laura for Sela.

The prototype Sasha Studio doll sized sundress and hat ready to send for Sela to try on

Close up showing the brettels and tassels in pink

Susie, my 18" Palitoy doll, modelling the hat for Sela (her head is bigger than a 16" Sasha doll head)

Laura and I had fun with a skype conversation as she showed me the dress on Sela and we discussed adjustments.  It turned out that Sela was a later doll than Emmalee Rose which meant she was slimmer around the chest, so the bodice was a little wide, however Laura solved this problem by taking in the dress under the arms by adding a dart on each side, as Sela keeps the outfit as thanks for helping with the sizing.

Sela wearing the prototype hat and dress for testing the pattern sizing (Laura's photo)

Sela has lovely eyes.  She is vinyl rather than hard plastic and is a few years younger than Emmalee Rose (Laura's photo)

Sela with the hat brim up at the front and down at the back (Laura's photo)

After looking at doll size comparison photos in the Sasha books (including Dorisanne's book) which clearly showed the difference in chest and waist size for these dolls which were 10 years apart in age, I decided not to adjust the pattern for Emmalee Rose's dress, if it did need adjustment then darts could be added as Laura had done for Sela.

Then it was Christmas time and there was no time until after Christmas day to get started on the shweshwe dress as I was finishing off two other projects and just before Christmas I made a toddler sized version of the dress in some Christmas colours for Louisa. 

Louisa, my toddler, wearing her version of the dress for Christmas

I was soon sewing again before the holidays were over.  I had decided to make the identical dress for my 16" Sasha Cora (Melanie) as well as for Dorisanne's doll.  Because I only had one fat quarter of each piece of fabric, I had to be careful how I used the fabric. So with all the pattern pieces to hand for both sizes, I plotted out the fabric to use for each element of the outfit.  I had bought some plain fabric in two of the colours - fuchsia pink and a darker lime green to act as a base and foil for the designs.  I had chosen 2 different shweshwe designs (swirls and spots) in two colour combinations - lime green, pumpkin orange and fuchsia pink, which meant there were 4 different patterns of shweshwe in each outfit.

For the sunhat I used plain fabric for one side of the brim and the orange based swirl design shweshwe for the other side of the brim.  Each hat crown was made up of 4 pieces, different combinations on each side, so the hat is completely reversible.  The brim can be worn up or down.

I made the two outfits in tandem as this meant that changing thread colours and presser feet for different stitch types on the sewing machine was kept to the minimum.  I decided to make the tassels in all three colours as their background would be the plain green skirt at the bottom of patterned brettels and this worked well.

Front view of the dress showing the tassels on the brettels.  The underpants elastic was tied and left exposed so that it could be adjusted to fit Emmalee Rose's waist.

Back view of the dress with the other side of the hat (the colour of the green is not correct in this photo)

Melanie wearing the 16" doll sized outfit and her shoes from Dorisanne alongside the 20" doll sized outfit for Emmalee Rose.  Her hat brim is shown with the orange pattern turned up.

Melanie wearing the 16" doll sized outfit and her shoes from Dorisanne alongside the 20" doll sized outfit for Emmalee Rose.  Her hat brim is shown with the plain fuchsia pink turned up.

Close up of the tassels at the end of the brettels

After I'd photographed the completed outfits, the Studio Doll sized outfit for Dorisanne went in the post to the USA.  By this time I had alerted Dorisanne that a small package was on its way to her.  We both waited, Dorisanne was snowed in and the lake frozen so the mail was slow and I wondered if the package had gone astray (I regretted not sending it tracked).  She tried emailing me to let me know it had arrived but the email went astray!  When she resent it a week later I got the message.  Dorisanne was delighted with the outfit.  The bonus was that the sizing was fine (my hunch that adjusting the bodice would not be the right thing to do was correct). Dorisanne explained what she did next:

"The fabric colors look so lovely on Emmalee Rose. Two years ago when I was in rehab after my knee replacement, we were in a class where we learned to use our walkers. We each picked some beads to string on a long pipe cleaner which we attached to our walkers to identify them. I chose pink, orange and green and had put the marker on my doorknob but now they have been made into a choker-necklace for Emmalee Rose and it matches the dress perfectly."

Photos of Emmalee Rose wearing her shweshwe outfit will follow when Dorisanne is able to take some pictures.

I had a lot of fun making this outfit and now have more confidence about resizing other Sasha patterns in the book to Sasha Studio doll size.