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.

Knitting my childhood outfit for Trudi

At the end of 2023 I decided to attempt a replication of an outfit my Nanna had knitted for my second birthday gift - a top and skirt with straps. I searched for the pattern she had used but wasn't able to find the exact pattern online, though I did find similar vintage patterns for knitted skirts with straps and knitted blouses which I was able to adapt and rescale for a 20 inch Sasha Studio doll. I commissioned some sandals to roughly match those I wore in one of the photos of me wearing the original outfit (thank you Lisa Hartley).

I bought 2 ply jumper weight Jamiesons & Smith of Shetland yarn (purchased via Woolwarehouse) to make the outfit and plotted out the flower garland design for the skirt on a spreadsheet grid, which is the tool I use for plotting out stranded knitting patterns. I don't think I got the proportions of the skirt and flower garland band quite right, and the skirt is a bit longer than the 'just above knee' look I had as a child. I knitted socks in finer yarn (1 ply), by Jamiesons of Shetland.

Trudi has had the outfit for several months now - I finished it before the Sasha Festival in Milton Keynes during June but was too busy and stressed about job issues to do anything about photographing it at the time. So at the close of 2024 it seems a fitting time to look back and reflect on this creative project before planning future craft projects for 2025 (after I finish knitting a current project for one of my daughters). 

I have photographed Trudi standing on the quilt given to me by my friend JoAnn when we attended the 2022 Sasha Doll festival in the USA. Despite adjusting the colours a bit on the computer, the skirt colour looks more orange in the photo than it does in real life.

Photo of toddler me in the original outfit with Trudi wearing the replica knitted outfit

Me wearing the knitted outfit on my second birthday

Me wearing the knitted outfit outdoors in the street where I grew up in Cape Town

Sasha Festival 2024 Day 3 - Saturday morning special displays

My Studio Doll Trudi was sitting near the Studio Doll display during the Saturday morning.

Trudi relaxing on Saturday morning

Florence and Reuben talk to Jocelyn's Ella about the pram (before Ella's hair was replaited)

There were several special displays on Saturday morning but they were not up for long enough!

As far as I could work out, the displays were a dedication to Rosie Shortell's, Dawn Law's wonderful prams, a Course doll display, a Studio doll display and an display featuring the work of some UK based Sasha seamstresses. 

I somehow didn't manage to capture photos of all the displays, they were only up for a very short period of time and were not announced. I think some of them could have stayed in place during the afternoon because not all the tables were needed for lunch or the afternoon sales tables. 

Tribute to Rosie Shortell

Four dolls with outfits by or organised by Rosie Shortell

Rosie Shortell dolls

Gorgeous Japanese inspired outfit

Cowboy playtime outfit

I recall seeing this doll and outfit at the 2012 festival

Charlotte, the 2013 Raffle doll, who is holding the drawstring bag my daughter made for her

Rosie Shortell the artist

Artist supplies

Easel and artist supplies

Rosie Shortell's painting on the easel

Another miniature painting by Rosie Shortell

Rosie the artist doll

Rosie's display for the 2012 Sasha Doll festival was the Midsummer Night's Dream costumes. It was rather wonderful to see these again 12 years later.

Three characters from Midsummer Night's Dream 

Four characters from Midsummer Night's Dream

The five Midsummer Night's Dream dolls and outfits 

Puck and Oberon

Titania and Moth fairy

Titania and Moth fairy

Cobweb fairy

Dawn had brought her wonderful collection of prams.

The very early Doucet pram with two wheel sizes

Catherine French has provided the following update, via the comments on this post, on that rare pram:

Re the more unusual pram with different sized wheels:

A French Museum, Les Arts Decoratifs, has one in its archives.

The Museum gives an approximate date for this model 1935-40 but this is probably incorrect as we believe that the prams were not put into production until the 1950’s and we have seen a photo of an early 1960's pram with the same hood and apron fabric.

It was probably made as a special item for the Au Nain Bleu toyshop in Paris.

3 of Dawn's prams

4 of Dawn's prams

5 of Dawn's prams

6 of Dawn's prams

5 of Dawn's prams

5 of Dawn's prams

I didn't manage to get much in the way of photos of the other displays, which I regret.

Sasha's UK Couturiers

Sasha's UK Couturiers in the foreground during Frank's talk 

UK Couturier display

UK Couturier display

UK Couturier display

UK Couturier display

UK Couturier display

UK Couturier display

The Studio doll display being dismantled

The Studio doll display being dismantled

Course doll display

Course doll display

It was wonderful to see all these displays, thank you to all those who contributed to them.

Sasha Festival 2024 Day 1 - arrivals and gift exchange

The 2024 Sasha Doll Festival was held in Hotel La Tour, central Milton Keynes, UK from 20-23 June. it was organised by Petrana, with advice, help and assistance from Dawn L and many others. The overall theme was 'Embracing Sasha's Magic, Creativity and Friendship in England'.

The 2024 festival was local to us so we only had a 15 minute drive to the hotel, where my husband dropped us off with all our boxes, bags, dolls and display items. We arrived at the hotel on the Thursday afternoon to be greeted by several Sasha enthusiasts in the lobby, a wonderful meeting of old and new friends. Once we had checked into our room, we went to the refreshments area on the conference floor to chat with others, I handed over my donations to two of the 5 special doll raffles, helped JoAnn a little with setting up a Raffle doll display in the conference room and brought the festival journal down from Dawn's room on my trolley to Kim B who was setting up to run registration. Then it was time for registration, after which we entered the conference room for the gift exchange.

For the gift exchange activity, I had made a tweed skirt with a Shetland wool cardigan, wrapped it carefully and labelled it as instructed.

Melanie models the gift exchange outfit I made of a Shetland cardigan and tweed skirt

My daughter participated in the gift exchange, I watched and took photos. At previous Sasha festivals we have attended, the gift exchange has been done as a 'pass the parcel' activity in a big circle. This time, the gift exchange game was designed to encourage each person to talk about something Sasha related, our interest in Sasha, what we do with Sasha, which Sasha dolls we collect, etc. Janet had printed out cards with various topic options on them and the participants could choose which topic they would talk about when it was their turn. The first person was picked and chose a topic, talked for a few minutes, selected a gift from the bag and read out the name of the gift giver but did not open the gift. The gift giver became the next person to choose a topic to talk about and select a gift and so it went on. No one opened their gifts until the last person had spoken and received their gift, then everyone was instructed to open their gift. We found out lots of interesting things about each other and our dolls in this exchange of information and gifts, it was fun.

Janet explains the gift exchange activity

The gift my daughter received in the gift exchange game

Listening to Sasha stories during the gift exchange

Selecting a gift from the bag

Opening the gift

Wow - panda outfits for baby and toddler by Olga of Ukraine, donated by Kim O - thank you

Dressing our baby Nina in her Panda outfit

Baby Nina as a panda sitting with another baby dressed as a lion

Edmund wearing his panda hood and boots, Nina wears her panda onesie

The gift item we had donated to the game was received by Jane W.

After the gift exchange it was 'dinner on your own' so we popped into the centre to pick up a takeaway snack as we had our main meal at lunchtime when still at home. Then we returned to chat to others before going to our room.

Trudi, Trendon Elliott, Louisa, Melanie, Nina and Edmund in our hotel room