USA 2017 - Sasha festival part 3

Just before lunch on the Friday of the festival, I took a few photos as Anne V was setting up her expert table of beautiful studio dolls.  Many of them were hers, but several other collectors at the festival brought along their dolls to be included in the display and Anne's talk.

Four beautiful studio dolls

Several studio babies gather at the front of the table

Anneliese and Monique

A Sasha Trachtenpuppe in the foreground along with the Sasha studio dolls

Doll stands awaiting more of the lovely Studio dolls

Diane and Theresa helped Anne set up the dolls

Such lovely dolls on display

Anne V busy unpacking the dolls

While the expert tables were being prepared the children at the festival were playing together - a guessing game using some modern technology.

The children having fun getting to know each other again

Flashcards using a phone

The buffet lunch was delicious.  During lunch we received our first Festival souvenirs and table hostess gifts.  The festival souvenirs in the white gift bag were very useful for keeping Sasha forever young - a buff sponge with a tub of Orvus cream for cleaning Sasha's vinyl, a lovely white bathrobe to wear while she is being pampered and instructions on how to make a Sasha facemask.  At our table the hostess was Sheila and she had made lovely fleecy fringed baby blankets and provided a mini teddy bear for those of us at her table.  My girl was sitting at a table with the other children and she received a cape, hair brush and hair ties for Sasha.

Baby Nina with her new teddy and blanket during lunch

After lunch it was time for the Experts tables.  There were four, however I ended up spending much of the time at one as Anne S was using baby Mabel as a demo model for restringing.  Mabel, my first Sasha doll, has always been my floppiest Sasha and this year she had gone even floppier, so I brought her to the festival so she could be restrung.  Anne showed that a baby is often harder to restring than a child Sasha as the loop of elastic between the arms needs to be very short. 

I had a quick look at Sheila's re-rooting expert table before going to watch Mabel's restringing

Anne started by removing Mabel's arms

Then she carefully removed her legs, one at a time

Unhooking the left leg from the elastic

Then unhooking the right leg

With the legs now off the elastic, the head came off (they share the same elastic)

Mabel's head hook

The bar for the hook in Mabel's head, Anne did not want to restring her too tightly as sometimes the old bar can break

The old elastics, ready for measuring for the new elastic

Tying the knot in the new elastic

Tying cords around the new elastic, ready to help thread it through the body

Using the cords to thread the elastic through the body

Pulling the first leg elastic through with the chord and holding it in place ready for the leg hook

Hooking the second leg onto the new elastic

Carefully releasing the cords now the legs are hooked onto the elastic

Getting ready to restring the arms

Opening up the arm hook slightly with pliers

Threading the arm elastic

Using the cord to help thread the very short arm elastic loop through the body

Watching Mabel being restrung

The old arm elastic just before it and the old body head and leg elastic was pushed carefully inside her body (it is normal practice to retain the original stringing inside the doll)

Baby Mabel restrung and sitting up nicely!

It was wonderful to have Mabel sitting properly again without her head flopping over - thank you so much to Anne for using her as the baby demo model and for restringing her so nicely.

I went to watch Dawn's demonstration of how to curl a Sasha doll's hair, using pipe cleaners.  She had explained the process to me in the past at a Chat 'n Snap, however it was good to see a demonstration, which involves hot water and short lengths of pipe cleaner.  My girl is keen to do it to baby Theo, whose hair is perfect, however Leo is the better candidate as he has a wayward fringe!

Dawn explaining how she curls doll hair

The baby in the pushchair has lovely curls and so does the Gotz Sasha girl beside her

Discussing hair curling

Dawn demonstrating how to wind the small bunches of hair onto a pipe cleaner as a young Sasha collector watches

Baby Mabel was glad to show her new found sturdiness as she crawled up Dawn's baby's pushchair while Nina hid under her hat

I completely missed taking photos of Ann C's expert table about using vintage fabrics for Sasha clothes and Anne V was packing up all the wonderful studio dolls after her talk to a large crowd when I left Dawn's table.

During the afternoon people were also viewing and voting for their favourite Dress a Sasha entry in the other room, viewing the helper raffle items and the Children's fund Auction items as they looked forward to it the excitement of the auction that evening.  I went back to photograph all the Dress a Sasha entries to make sure I hadn't missed any.

In case you've missed them see Part 1 of the 2017 Sasha Festival and Part 2 of the 2017 Sasha Festival.

Sasha Celebration Weekend 2017 - part 5

After the craft workshops we had a buffet lunch with more chatting, followed by a restringing demonstration by Liss.  She restrung a Gotz doll which was a little loose and had been previously restrung incorrectly.

Liss prepares to take the doll apart

Using a crochet hook to hold the elastic as she removes the leg

Examining the doll torso and how the arms were strung on their own elastic when they should have been on the same elastic as the head and legs

Using a hairdryer to heat up the neck vinyl to remove the wooden neck ring

Using long nosed pliers to carefully remove the wooden neck ring

Checking the length of the existing elastic.  It was long enough to do both the arms and legs so did not need replacing.

Carefully replacing the neck ring into the head again

Stringing the arms

Pulling the elastic through to string the legs

Pulling up the leg elastic

The doll all in one piece again

Brushing her hair

Next it was time for the raffle.  Everyone gathered into the room with their tickets.  We were told at the start of the raffle that it had raised £2,300 for a children's charity, which was a magnificent sum.
This year the special prizes were on a separate table and included eight dolls kindly donated by various people, a beautiful Frances Trickett dress, a smart pair of shoes, some lovely drawings by Joni, the book by Dorisanne Osborne and a set of patterns.  There was a final prize - a wobbler donated by Janet (a wobbler is a Sasha baby whose legs have been straightened enough for it to be able to stand - this is done using a boiling water technique).

The other table held a mountain of prizes, including many outfits.  I had made a shweshwe dress, panties and hat set for a baby to add to the pile.

Diane ran the raffle with Judith helping to keep things moving, otherwise it would have gone on for hours.

Some of the 'special' prizes

The lovely Sasha drawings by Joni

Embroidered dress by Frances

Raffle prizes

More raffle prizes

and more raffle prizes with the blue shweshwe set

and more raffle prizes!

The wobbler with eyes repainted by Janet

The first prize was a special and it was won by the youngest person at the Sasha Celebration, much to everyone's delight.

A young lady and her grandmother looking at their tickets in amazement as the first prize is announced

Trisha points out all the prizes she can choose from except for the wobbler which is the last prize

She chooses a rerooted baby

The winner of the doll Kendal had donated (the girl with bobbed hair) was in charge of the raffle, so she stayed on the table.

Excitement as another winner of a special prize comes to claim a doll

My girl had won a couple of prizes on the general raffle table including receiving a ticket from Jocelyn who had bought tickets to donate to others if she won anything as she didn't want to add to her collection but wanted to donate and participate.

Another special was announced and it was one of my girl's tickets!  She chose the early baby Woolly in his complete original outfit, perfect hair and gold tag.  He had travelled all the way from the USA with Mary who donated him to the raffle.  My girl could not quite believe her luck - last year she won baby Daisy on the raffle and this year baby Theo.

Admiring baby Theo as the generous donor looked on with smile

My girl with baby Theo

Raffle tickets laid out on a table

Happy winner of the lovely embroidered dress

Excited to win the shoes

Jocelyn continued her generosity - she nominated my girl for more prizes and when she won a special she donated the ticket to the youngest Sasha collector who excitedly chose another baby to take home.

Collecting her second baby from the special prize table

Winning the patterns

The pleased owner of Dorisanne's book

Finally the main table was empty and the special table only had the wobbler waiting for its new owner.  It had to be Janet drawing the final prize ticket as she had donated the doll.

Suspense as Janet draws the ticket for the final prize

And the winner was Theresa!

Collecting her wobbler

Very happy smile

Thank you to everyone who donated the wonderful prizes and bought tickets, it was such a fun raffle and very lovely to see all the excited winners.  We were enormously lucky to win several prizes.

It was time for tea and chatting while the sales tables were set up.