Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 4

On Saturday morning we were treated to two very interesting talks.  The first was by a slightly nervous Marie, who showed us some brilliant slides of studio dolls and discussed in detail the history of Sasha studio dolls in particular.  Her slides showed the different faces which Sasha used, some of them more regularly than others.  She then unveiled her collection of Studio dolls in glass cases which we were able to photograph, what a glorious surprise to see them up close.

waiting for the first talk to begin

Marie gives her Studio doll talk

Eskimo Sasha studio dolls

Sasha Studio doll

A lovely pair of Sasha Studio dolls

Christine with her rare Sasha studio baby

rare Sasha studio baby

After the tea break Brenda Walton, the manager of the Trendon Factory, gave us a fascinating talk about the production and also showed us a BBC produced film of little Jenny watching her Gregor doll being made.  We were all pleased to know that Jenny still lives in the area near the factory and still has her Gregor.  It was quite entertaining when the hair was rooted into the doll's head by machine - the gasps and laughs around the room were quite audible, especially as we had learned all about the tedious task of rerooting the previous day - so fast and easy compared to the restoration process now.

Dawn Law with Ann Chandler

Brenda Walton talks of the early Sasha collector
who dressed the dolls to record a bygone era

the children busy colouring and drawing

Listening to Brenda

Some of Brenda's gorgeous Sasha Trendon collection

Some of Brenda's gorgeous Sasha Trendon collection

A lovely redhead from Brenda's collection

Another lovely redhead from Brenda's collection

My girl plays with our Sasha dolls

Before lunch, my daughter and I took the opportunity to look at the amazing Special Raffle prizes and the Helper Raffle.  We, like everyone else, were quite overwhelmed by the sight of the three prizes.  My girl wanted to win the baby, I liked the blond school boy and the American invasion Cora in equal measure, their collections of clothes and accessories were truly incredible.

On our way to lunch I got a chance to take a photo of the amazing themed display in the lobby with the cabinet doors open, so no glass reflections or door dividing the scene.

Children's Fund Auction next, but that will be in my next post.

Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 3

Friday morning setting up the 'Dress a Sasha' started from 7:30 am.  More entries than had notified Dawn had arrived (about double the number expected), and there wasn't enough table space for everyone to have their 18 x 18 inches.  Some of the entries for the same section (there were 3 themes, with 2 categories in each theme) were split up and displayed in different areas of the room.  Some entries were placed on narrow windowsills in front of the mirrors decorating the room.

Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross, to see a Fine Lady upon a White Horse,
with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, and she shall have music wherever she goes

I found I was all fingers and thumbs when setting up my display (unusual for me) and was very lucky that Lisa Hartley was setting up alongside me (in a different section for the theme) and was kind enough to help me put the long boots (which she had made) onto Florence who was being Lady Celia Feinnes (Ride a Cock Horse) for the morning - thank you Lisa.  Some people arrived later and found they had no table space at all - the last to arrive set up her 'rock a bye baby' on a chair which was below the table level.  The Royal Family section was compacted into a smaller area than needed, which meant one entry was in front of another on the table, and two entries were so close that some people thought they were together. The Shakespeare sections had all fortunately been placed together and could be easily compared, they were all brilliant entries. The three themes were:

• The British Royal Family
• Characters from Shakespeare
• English Nursery Rhymes 

The two categories were:

• outfits made by the entrant 
• outfits made by someone else, assembled by the entrant

My daughter entered the children's section, with a cat outfit on baby Mabel which I had made the previous weekend.  I had made the outfits for my entry.  Both of us used the English Nursery Rhyme theme.

Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross

The ostler's boy with the white horse

Hey Diddle Diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon,
the little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon

Once the entries were assembled, the morning's programme started.  Dawn welcomed us all with an entertaining speech in which she somehow managed to bring in as many Shakespearian play titles as possible, to great applause.  She introduced Chris and Christine Meatyard who gave a very interesting illustrated talk on how they restore Sasha waifs, even the ones which seem beyond help, and as a result we all learned about the wonders of Milliput and boiling water!

Chris and Chris

Tea break - Sasha's looking after the chairs

This was followed by a tea break in which some people posted their voting slips for the 'Dress a Sasha' competition, I heard and observed several people confused by the jumbled up themes and categories.

All the Royal Family entries, both categories

This was followed by a good illustrated talk by Rosie Bloomfield in which she showed us step by step how to make a pair of Mary Jane shoes for a Sasha doll, she gave us photocopied plans and encouraged us to give it a try.

Rosie and her shoes

During her talk the 'Dress a Sasha' votes were counted, and chocolate medals placed with the winners.  Several people were surprised that they had missed the voting, the programme had indicated we could vote after the talk, but apparently the room had to be cleared by 1pm to allow hotel staff to reset it for the evening dinner, and unfortunately there would be no space to keep the displays up during the meal.

Some of the children's entries

All the children's entries (there were four) were given medals for first place, they were all good and it was impossible to choose between them.  So my daughter was delighted, as her 'Hey Diddle Diddle' earned her some chocolate, however she gave the medal to me on a little note, when I asked her why she said "because you deserve it Mummy", which was lovely of her.  Ride a Cock horse didn't win anything, there were 9 entries in the category and the winner was outstanding.

Winner of English Nursery Rhyme, made by entrant

Henry V (the famous Henry is a King for the morning)

Midsummer Night's Dream

Henry V

Lisa Hartley's 'Little Bo Peep' with clothes made by Ruth Hartley

Medal for Mummy

My daughter and I decided not to go on the afternoon coach tour around Cotswold villages, so we had a drink and something to eat while we waited for my husband and elder daughter to return from the aircraft museum they were visiting, so they could give us a lift back to the caravan.  We went for a dog walk during the afternoon, then got changed for the evening dinner.  This is when I sprung the new doll surprise on my children, as I had made a dress for the Blond Gingham to match the dress I'd made for my younger daughter to wear at the festival dinner, as well as a lacy cardigan and headband for the doll.  After some discussion they decided our new girl had to be called Miranda after the character from 'The Tempest' which they had seen in Stratford-upon-Avon a couple of years ago.

The dresses I made, by this time a little creased!

My girl sat at the children's table and I sat with a lovely group of people at the other side of the room.  We received the first of our table gifts at the meal - a fabulous pair of converse shoes covered in the Union Jack in a little bag, and at our table we also had little bags of Stratford notelets with the Festival details printed on them.  And Dee handed around a bag of colourful hats she had made for us to choose from, so I felt really spoiled.  The after dinner surprise guest speaker was none other than Anna Doggart, the daughter of the owners of the Trendon factory, and she had known Sasha Morgenthaler well and had several studio dolls to show us.  What a lovely way to end a long and interesting day.

Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 2

As soon as my younger daughter got out of school on Thursday afternoon we collected our caravan and drove to Stratford-upon-Avon.  After setting up on our pitch I was keen to get to the festival so we all had a quick bite to eat and set forth with Florence, Nicholas James and baby Mabel.  We got to the hotel soon after 6.30pm and were immediately overwhelmed by the amazing displays in the lobby set up by Rosemarie Shortell and Dawn Law.  After registering (and being welcomed in a very friendly way by Dawn and Rosemarie, which put us nervous newbies at ease) I almost immediately spotted Fran and Boo, whose photos and blog of the 2011 festival had inspired me to attend this year.  It was super to meet them and immediately my little girl, Boo and another child set to playing together while Fran and I chatted.

The meet and greet area was crowded and quite noisy with lots of excited people and their beautiful dolls, I'd never seen so many Sasha and Gregor dolls in one place before, and it was a little overwhelming, but everyone I spoke to was friendly.  The swap meet gift exchange took place in one of the connecting rooms where we were socialising, a table was cleared to take all the gifts and Dawn dished out numbers as we placed gifts on the table.  The rules had been changed from those of previous festivals apparently, so what you unwrapped was what you kept (unless you arranged a private swap later with someone), however because the room was so crowded and a little chaotic, it was hard to see what people were unwrapping, and not everyone waved the item above their head to show it off to everyone.  I was gratified that Heidi Wheeler was pleased with the mint green set I had made, and we received a lovely little short blue jacket made by Mary Jones of www.sashafashions.co.uk, which Florence decided was hers, as it matched her navy flowered dress she was wearing.

My photos from the evening are a bit blurred, my own camera wasn't coping well with the indoor lighting and my trigger happy finger (I didn't allow the focus to adjust before pushing down the button fully), so the next 3 days I used a much better DSLR borrowed from work.

Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 1

I've been very busy sewing and knitting in preparation for the Sasha Doll festival which this year took place in the UK for the first time in 12 years, hence no blogging since the beginning of May.  I'll cover the festival in a series of posts, as I've got lots to share now that it is over (except for the lucky crowd who can get to Dawn's house tomorrow for tea - I shall be working).  I had a great time and so did my younger daughter who joined me and it was lovely to meet so many people whom I've only ever 'met' online.  A big thank you to all those who helped organise the festival.

I contributed 2 items to the festival this year which I made:

• A sleeping bag, hand embroidered night dress, dressing gown and slippers for the Children's Fund Auction made from white fleece and patterned polyester cotton fabric, trimmed with lace.
• A mint green skirt, top and hair band for the gift swap at the meet and greet.  The skirt was made from a wide band of machine embroidered gathered trim which I'd been given by a friend, it is the perfect length for a Sasha skirt.

However I also sewed an outfit for my younger daughter and a matching outfit for a Sasha doll, and knitted a lacy cardigan and hairband for the doll to match the dress

And I spent some time planning and creating my 'Dress a Sasha' entry. 

At Easter I bought another Sasha girl - a blond gingham without the gingham dress but with a vintage dress - via the Sasha Doll UK website and kept her hidden as a festival surprise.  In these photos she models the 'Goodnight Sasha' set and the mint green set.

CFA item 72

my blond gingham models CFA item 72

white fleece dressing gown, matching slippers, A-line nightdress, sleeping bag

hand embroidery on the nightdress

Mint green outfit: jersey top, machine embroidered skirt, jersey headband

close up of the top

 More about the actual festival and our new girl's name in the next posts.

Kit review of Galt pony

Galt 'Sew a Pony' kit - aged 8 to adult

My 8 year old daughter was given this kit for her birthday. It is more complex than the felt doll she sewed for herself and she needed adult help. I decided that because there was a lot of sewing involved this was a good opportunity to start teaching her how to use a sewing machine, however, rather than teach her with the electric machine, and because she had seen an old working sewing machine at Bletchley Park the previous day, I decided my old 1920s Singer could do with some exercise and she was up for the fun.

So for the first time in about 17 years I got the old Singer going again.   There is a story attached to this machine, but I'll tell you about that in another post.

My girl setting up her sewing on the Singer machine,
notice the pattern pieces on the sheet

Sewing on the Singer machine

The machine can only stitch ordinary straight running stitch, it cannot stitch backwards or do any fancy patterns.  It needed a little adjustment and threading it was an entertainment (fortunately I had left some thread in it so I had some guidance).  It seemed to stitch fairly evenly some of the time, then was occasionally uneven, so eventually we changed to my electric machine to complete the kit.

The kit comes with the pieces ready cut, but also with the complete set of pieces printed on a sheet of brown tissue paper for you to match the pieces to it before you start sewing, and this also means you could cut out your own pieces in your own fabric if you wanted to.  The pads of the hooves are in a shiny stretchy fabric which is a little tricky to sew.  Some of the sewing she did was by hand, using back stitch, however she quickly tired of this in fabric which resisted the needle, which was another reason to use the machine.  Most of the fabric is patterned polyester cotton, easy to sew but there were many seams, a daunting task for an inexperienced sewer.

The order of stitching is fairly complex, I don't think she would have managed this kit without the help of an experienced needlewoman.  I did a fair bit of the machine sewing, simply because I could sit and reach the foot treadle, whereas she couldn't, however she still took a keen interest in helping put the pony together and helped turn parts right side out and stuff the body parts at various stages.  She is delighted with the results (she decided the embroidered nostrils weren't needed) and plays with this little pony quite a lot.  The limbs are fastened on with embroidery thread and buttons, so they sort of swivel a bit.

The completed pony with her box

It was a satisfying kit to assemble, the instructions were comprehensive and clear and the results are good.  But it definitely requires fairly experienced skills to complete.

The completed pony, called 'Emily' apparently

A new dress for Susie

While I was sewing the spring outfit for Florence I also cut out and stitched a dress from the same set of Sasha patterns for my Palitoy Susie. She has thicker arms than the Sasha dolls so I adjusted the arm openings very slightly. It was the only adjustment needed.

The fabric is material I have had for a very long time and suits her colouring well. I am knitting the raglan cardigan for her but with slightly thicker needles to fit her body and arm size better.

Susie in her new spring dress