Sasha Festival 2024 Day 3 - Table hostess gifts final helper raffle draws and Dress a Sasha winners

I was a table hostess for the Saturday lunchtime buffet lunch. The US based Sasha festival crew, who have organised many festivals, knew how to combat the issue of people picking a particular table hostess whom they guessed would give wonderful gifts and it worked as follows: the table hostesses met in the foyer while everyone else went into the conference room, found a numbered table to sit at and settled down. In the meantime each table hostess was assigned a number and exchanged gifts (we didn't open them). Once everyone had settled, the table hostesses entered the room with their gifts and found their numbered table, so it was a complete surprise about who was hosting each table. My daughter had fortunately managed to avoid being at my table, so she received a gift from a different table hostess.

I had provided 3 table hostess gifts for each person (we had to provide enough gifts for 10 people), two of which I had made myself and one which I commissioned from a friend. I made little Scottish tweed handbags which had plaited Shetland wool handles and lavender bags containing dried lavender from my English garden. My friend had knitted little toys for Sasha/Gregor - there were mermaids, monkeys and teddies in different colours. 

Scottish Tweed handbags I made

Tweed handbags with the knitted toys made by my friend Sue

Add the lavender bags with lavender from my garden

I was pleased with how the gifts turned out and was even more pleased when those I was hosting seemed happy with them. It is always hard to know what to make as hostess gifts, this was the second time I had hosted (the first time was at the 2017 festival). 

In the table hostess gift exchange I was delighted to receive a gift from Monica J (a pair of her beautifully crafted shoes). At the table hosted by Tricia, my daughter was very pleased to receive a fully reversible shorts and top outfit made of Liberty lawn for a Sasha baby, with a miniature floral elephant toy).

We were also given our second Festival souvenir - each of us received a reinforced envelope in which we found beautifully designed and printed paper dolls based on Sasha and outfits - these were designed by artist Janet Myhill-Dabbs. I don't think any of us can bear to cut them out!

Trudi relaxes with JoAnn's soft body baby on her lap,
with JoAnn's dolls in matching dresses and Florence looking over her shoulder

The lovely people at the table I hosted

The helper raffle draws happened on the Friday and on the Saturday, they needed to be cleared by Saturday lunchtime, to allow the long tables to be reused for the Sales tables, so the final draws took place before lunch had finished. We had placed tickets in several items (sometimes more than one ticket) but didn't win anything in the helper raffle.

The winners for the Dress a Sasha were announced. My daughter and I tied for 2nd place in our category! We took final photos of the first, second and third placed entries, then carefully dismantled our entries back into the plastic crates on the trolley and took ours back to our room. 

The Fairy won for the Teenaged entrant!

1st placed English Garden crafted by Adult

2nd placed English Garden crafted by Adult

2nd placed English Garden crafted by Adult

3rd placed English Garden crafted by Adult

3rd placed English Garden crafted by Adult

3rd placed English Garden crafted by Adult

1st placed English Garden assembled by Adult

2nd placed English Garden assembled by Adult

1st placed Afternoon Tea crafted by Adult

2nd placed Afternoon Tea crafted by Adult

3rd placed Afternoon Tea crafted by Adult

1st placed Afternoon Tea assembled by Adult

DollMum with our joint 2nd placed Dress a Sasha entries

DollMum's daughter with our joint 2nd placed Dress a Sasha entries

While the conference room was being reconfigured for the Sales tables, I had a quick trip into the shopping centre to the cash machine while my daughter found some items she needed at the shops.

USA 2017 - Sasha festival part 9

The Sasha Festival was over, we had returned from the Udvar-Hazy centre, the girls had a swim and we had dinner together with Charla and her granddaughter.  After returning to our room I decided to sort through all our wonderful new items we had acquired during the festival - souvenirs, gifts, crafts, won and purchased.  It was during this sorting out period that I discovered my girl had left her Friday table souvenirs behind in the ballroom and they had gone into lost property, so I contacted Charla and Karen and discovered that Karen had them, but had returned home, an hour's drive away.  We made arrangements to collect them from her once we had a hire car after our Washington DC adventures which were about to commence.

My wonderful collection of 2017 Sasha Festival souvenirs including the superb outfit by Karen W with Marti shoes

The felt and magazine/booklet craft patterns along with the puppets we made up when designing the patterns

Table hostess gifts, mostly my set - top left is the cape and hairbrush set from Friday (my daughter's gift), top right is the Saturday night gifts from Karen K, the two fleecy baby blankets (I gave the red/blue/white tie dye patterned blanket to my friend Jocelyn when I returned to the UK)

My prizes from the Helper Raffle - two Morrisey sewing patterns and a vintage rag doll, quilting book and partly made doll quilt

My daughter's (incomplete) collection of 2017 Sasha Festival souvenirs with Laura modelling the wonderful outfit by Karen W - this was when we discovered the white bathrobe etc was missing

My daughter's partly made glove puppet and her other craft items

My daughter's prizes from the Helper Raffle - the dress on the right was a gift from someone who won it on Sunday and passed it to my girl.  L-R: Our generation workshop tools, mini laptop for dolls (a mirror), globe, blanket, Dollydoodles outfit and the peach/orange dress set with a bee embroidered on it

The gifts my daughter received during and after the gift exchange - the white dress and Holly Hobbie doll and the USA outfit which will feature prominently in the next set of blog posts as those who are on the Sasha Morgenthaler Facebook group will know

The various gifts people just gave to my daughter during the weekend - on the left is the outfit by Phyllis G (she made outfits for all the children at the festival), in the middle are various lovely little Sasha scaled items and on the right is the Smocking magazine and pleated fabric from Julie R for my girl to start smocking

The items my girl bought from Fran's sales table on Saturday - knitting needles and wool along with art materials for Sasha

My daughter's table hostess gifts from Saturday and Sunday - on the left are the novelty items from Karen K and on the right is the picnic basket, bottle of chocolate milk and Jemima Puddleduck cushion from Pat P

Not pictured is the collection of lovely recycled cashmere wool balls I bought at the Sales and the outfit which Timothy bought from Sheila F at the sales (his much loved Minion shirt and denim shorts with real pockets) and wore to the Air and Space museum on Sunday afternoon just after the festival. 

Also not pictured are the toddler outfits I bought - the dress and sandals for my new girl and the shorts and sandals for Edmund.

The other posts about the Sasha Festival are part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5,  part 6,  part 7 and part 8.  The next posts will be all about Laura's adventures as she explored the USA.

USA 2017 - Sasha festival part 8

Suddenly it was the last day of the festival - it had gone by so fast after months of preparation and years of dreaming about and saving up for it. 

I had volunteered to be a table hostess for the Babies and Toddlers breakfast.  Table hostesses provide a gift for each of those sitting at their table in addition to the Festival souvenir gifts.  My younger daughter's designs for her dress a Sasha were pressed into service as my sister had printed enough extras on the fabric I had provided for me to make up eight t-shirts for baby or toddler Sasha.  I also made 8 mini teddies (stuffies) from felt to go with them.  These teddies were stitched in the car on the way to and from Waldkirch the month before and my younger daughter stuffed them for me.  Their faces were drawn on with fabric pen and they have bows around their necks with my girl tied for me because she didn't think I got my bows straight enough!  The t-shirts have bias binding around the neck, sleeves and bottom hem and seams under the arms, plus one popper on the back.  I had hand stitched some of these on a music outing with my younger daughter and her orchestra (time on the coach and in the concert!).  I had placed the gifts in lime green boxes with a label.  All the boxes were placed in the centre of my daughter's hold luggage, with clothes packed all around them to cushion them from damage.

My table hostess gifts in their boxes, all ready to travel to the USA (click on the photo to get a closer look)

Just before Sunday breakfast all the table hostesses came to set out their gifts on their tables.  One gift was put in the pool of gifts and we each chose one of the gifts - I ended up picking one which was identical to the one I'd received at the Friday lunchtime meal as Sheila had hosted twice - a lovely fleecy fringed baby blanket but in a different pattern.

My table with the hostess gifts and the information about next year's festival along with the Festival Souvenirs in the brown paper bags.

On display on a table close to mine were the dolls modelling the 4 wonderful festival souvenir outfits, along with the chocolate bars.  They are all stunning.

2017 Sasha Festival souvenir outfits sewn by Karen W and the Lindt chocolate bars

2017 Sasha Festival souvenir outfits sewn by Karen W

Sheila brought her wigged baby to sit on my lime green pram!

Ginger and Sheila with my pram and the baby with hair that rocks

Ellen, Carmen, Judy W and Fran came to sit at our table, along with Ellen's partner and my husband and we had some lovely conversations.  My girl sat with her friends at Pat P's table.  After breakfast Ellen and Joe were interested in looking at the printed out blog posts about restoring the pram and my husband also showed them photos of our little street organ we built.  Then it was time to open the hostess gifts and some of the babies at our table put their t-shirts on and cuddled their new toys.  We also opened our final Festival souvenir gifts in the brown packages, they were a wonderful addition to the already super collection we had received - a long sleeved Sashapotomus onesie and a pattern for baby clothes (skirt and onesie for baby or toddler). And already it was time for some goodbyes - Ellen and Joe had to leave for their flight home before the final raffle draw.

Looking at the pram and the dolls

Breakfast before opening the gifts

Discussing photos of our street organ

Discussing the street organ photos

Opening the table hostess gifts from DollMum

Cuddling her stuffie bear

Cuddling the stuffie bear before putting on the t-shirt

Wearing the new t-shirt and cuddling the stuffie

Cuddling their stuffies

Ellen's baby wore his new Eeyore t-shirt

Peggy came to join us at the table for a little while in between phone calls about a baby on his way (which made us all excited for her). 

Fran and Peggy at breakfast

The next festival was announced - everyone is welcome to 'The Land of 1,000 Sasha dolls' in Minnesota in June 2018.

Announcing the 2018 Sasha Festival

Then it was the final Helper raffle draw (some of which had happened at the meal the night before), the children lined up to help with distributing the prizes.

The final helper raffle draw

The children helping with the Helper Raffle draw

Then the 3 Raffle dolls were drawn - a moment of big excitement as everyone waited with bated breath for Norvell to read out the number on the ticket for the Calendar Girl.  It was Ellen's number and as she had donated the doll but not the outfits she had left instructions for it to drawn again so that the winner would get the doll with the outfit she had donated while she kept the other outfits.  So it was drawn again and Elizabeth M won the lovely doll.  Charla drew the ticket for the baby Matti and his outfits, which were won by Jackie K and the Toddler 'Raffie' with her outfits was drawn by Karen W with the winner Sharon C delighted to receive such a lovely prize.

Norvell making announcements about the raffle

Norvell draws the ticket for the calendar girl doll

Very happy winner of the calendar girl doll

Charla reads out the winner of the baby

Delighted to win baby Matti

Karen draws the ticket for the toddler

Norvell announces the winner of the toddler

A very happy winner of the toddler

Everyone was thanked for attending and everyone thanked Charla, Karen and Norvell for all their years of planning and hard work organising the festival and making sure it ran so smoothly.  They did a wonderful job and there were smiles all round as several of us asked them to pose for photos.

Thank you Charla, Karen and Norvell for organising a fabulous 2017 Sasha Doll Festival - what a great team

Then it was over and time for goodbyes as people started to disperse to catch trains, planes and drive home from such a happy gathering of Sasha collectors.  It is always sad to say goodbye, especially when you've made new friends, renewed friendships and don't know when you'll next get to meet up for a face to face chat.  We were not leaving that day as we had the sights of Washington DC to explore next.

Goodbye to Sasha friends

Safe journeys and looking forward to meeting again one day

We consoled ourselves after the sad goodbyes by catching a bus to the Udvar-Hazy centre - part of the Air and Space museum, the branch of the Smithsonian which was only 5 miles from the hotel.  We took Timothy and Edmund.  Timothy had changed his clothes to his new Sheila F outfit - the Minion shirt and denim shorts, while Edmund kept his Dress a Sasha shirt on with his new shorts and sandals by Monica J.

At the museum we were excited to discover a Cessna plane which people were allowed people to sit in to try the controls.  The boys joined the queue and played with the interactive display board controls which showed what the different terms mean in flying while they waited their turn - roll, yawl and pitch.

The Cessna from above

Edmund and Timothy learn about flying a plane

Timothy discovered what a roll is in flying

He also learned about the yaw

Edmund experimented with pitch in flying

The sign inviting them to be pilot for the day

About the Cessna plane and Roll, Yaw and Pitch

Edmund and Timothy in the Cessna plane

The Cessna is so small

My husband was thrilled to climb into the Cessna too, on his one previous trip to the USA in 1985 he had a memorable flight in a privately owned Cessna and was given the controls for a while when flying.  It is probably one of the top 10 highlights of his life. 
We saw lots of other planes but one of the highlights was seeing the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Distant view of the Space Shuttle Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery is huge and impressive

Edmund and Timothy enjoyed looking at a model of the Space Shuttle

The museum is smartly designed and is on the flight path for Washington Dulles Airport.  While we were waiting for the bus back to the airport then hotel, we saw several planes fly over the entrance.

Commercial flight over the Air and Space Museum

When we got back to the hotel, my girl met up with her new friend who wasn't leaving with her grandmother until the Tuesday.  They were soon back in the water again. 

Swimming in the indoor pool at the hotel

We had dinner with Charla and her granddaughter after the girls had finished swimming and planned the next day's outing together.

See Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5,  part 6 and part 7 if you haven't read them. There is one more festival post to come, all about what we received and bought at the festival.