Sasha Festival 2024 Day 2 - Children's Fund Auction

Dawn had set up a wonderful tea party in the garden display featuring some of the props Sara Doggart had used in the original Trendon Sasha catalogues, it was on display all weekend.

Dawn's tea party in the garden display

Tea table while harvesting apples

Gregor helps baby on the slide

Waiting to start the sumptuous tea

Dawn's toddler in her knitted dress and curly hair with her watering can and wheel barrow

Breakfast on the Friday morning at the Sasha Festival was in the restaurant on the fourteenth floor with magnificent views of Milton Keynes - Campbell Park on the one side and the city centre on the other side.

View from the restaurant of Campbell Park including MK Rose, the light pyramid and Willen lake in the distance

View from the restaurant of MK Theatre and Midsummer Boulevard

View from the restaurant of MK Shopping Centre

After breakfast, we went down to the conference room to admire all the Children's Fund Auction entries, the Limited Edition Auction dolls, buy raffle tickets for the special raffle dolls and the helper raffle and admire Dawn's Sasha Tea party in the garden display which was up all weekend. Photos of the raffles will be in another blog post. The photos of the auction items before the auction were all taken by my daughter.

Children' Fund auction lots 1-11

Children' Fund auction lots 8-15

Children' Fund auction lots 11-13

Children' Fund auction lots 14-29

Children' Fund auction lots 18-30

Children' Fund auction lots 33-42

Children' Fund auction lots 35-44

Children' Fund auction lots 44-52

Children' Fund auction lot 48

Children' Fund auction lots 53-65

Children' Fund auction lots 57-70

Children' Fund auction lots 70-77

Children' Fund auction lot 71

Children' Fund auction lots 78-87

Children' Fund auction lot 86

Children' Fund auction lots 86-93

Children' Fund auction lot 93

Children' Fund auction lots 90-104

Children' Fund auction lots 105-114

Children' Fund auction lot 112

Children' Fund auction lots 111-121

Children' Fund auction lot 117

Children' Fund auction lots 120-124 

Children' Fund auction lots 122-130

Children' Fund auction lots 131-140

Children' Fund auction lots 132-140

It was a morning of socialising and taking photos. Lunch was 'on your own' so we grabbed some pastries and fruit from the refreshments area as we had a large breakfast, then returned to the conference room for the start of the Children's Fund Auction.

The afternoon started with the Limited Edition Special Sasha auction of the number 1 dolls of the Trendon Limited Edition dolls. The auctioneer was Janet. For many years, Sasha collectors had wondered what had happened to the number #1 dolls of each Velvet, Pintucks, Kiltie, Harlequin, Prince and Princess. It has recently come to light that Sara Doggert had give the 5 number #1 dolls to her son John Doggert, the number #2 and #3 dolls to his sisters. Earlier this year, John decided his five dolls could be auctioned at the festival, to raise money towards refugee charities, an idea entirely in keeping with Sasha Morgenthaler and Sara Doggert, who had once been a refugee. There was a hidden reserve on each doll and the auction was open to outside bidders, so was live streamed and auction bids were placed online in the Sasha Festival Facebook group.

All six Limited Edition #1 Sasha dolls on display at the festival

Limited Edition #1 Sasha Doll Velvet (1980/1 of 5000)

Limited Edition #1 Sasha Doll Pintucks (1982/1 of approx 4600)

Limited Edition #1 Sasha Doll Kiltie (1983/1 of 4000)

Limited Edition #1 Sasha Doll Harlequin (1984/1 of approx 2500)

Limited Edition #1 Sasha Doll Prince Gregor (1985/1 of approx 3000)

Limited Edition #1 Sasha doll Princess (1986/1 of 350)

Before each doll was auctioned, Janet explained a bit about its history and condition, there were slide pictures up on screen and the dolls were on display in the room. They were all Mint in Box condition and were stunning.

Janet introduces the Limited Edition #1 auction

Slide about the Limited Edition #1 Velvet

Janet with the 6 Limited Edition #1 dolls at the start of the auction

Slide about the Limited Edition #1 Pintucks

Slide about the Limited Edition #1 Kiltie

Slide about the Limited Edition #1 Harlequin

Slide about the Limited Edition #1 Prince Gregor

Slide about the Limited Edition #1 Sasha Princess

Auctioning Slide about the Limited Edition #1 Sasha Princess

It was exciting to watch the bids go up. Not surprisingly, Princess, the most rare of them all (only 350 made in 1986 just before the Trendon factory closed) went for the highest amount, they all fetched good amounts and the total of £2850 was split between Care4Calais (a charity which provides vital support to refugees) 65% and Save the Children 35%.

Then Sheila took over as auctioneer for the Children's Fund Auction. My daughter carried the auction items to the team recording the bids and wrapping the items for collection.

Holding up Lot 70 donated by Anna Doggart

Holding up Lot 71 donated by Janet and Florence

Holding up Lot 76 made and donated by Sheila

Holding up Lot 81 donated by Anna Doggart

Holding up Lot 86 made and donated by Catherine French

Holding up Lot 87 donated by Florence with outfit made by Rosie Laird

Holding up Lot 93 make-over doll donated by Pam

Holding up Lot 102 outfits donated by Lynne

Holding up Lot 112 outfits made and donated by DollMum (me)

I was really pleased that the pair of Scottish inspired outfits I had made from Harris Tweed and Shetland wool had a winning bid of £120. 

A total of £16455 was raised in the Children's Fund Auction for Save the Children, a very gratifying amount from one event.

The total for the CFA, Limited Edition Auction and Helper Raffle ticket sales over the weekend was £19441, all donated to charity.

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

Sasha Festival 2024 DollMum's donations to the baby and Gregor raffles

I made two items to donate to two different raffles at the 2024 Sasha Festival.

A baby doll raffle was compiled Florence from the USA. She needed toys for the baby, so I made one of the push along duck toys I had originally designed for the craft workshop I ran at the 2017 Sasha Celebration Weekend. 

Push along duck for the 2024 baby doll raffle

Push along duck for the 2024 baby doll raffle

The Gregor raffle was compiled by Dawn in the UK and she said the boy had clothes but not many toys or accessories. I created a version of the ostrich marionette I had designed for the craft workshop at the 2016 Sasha Celebration weekend. I had one spare hand controller from that workshop but did not have any spare body parts, with no time to make another body, I searched through my stash of wooden beads and devised a variant of the 2016 design using a large red wooden bead plus a small red wooden bead. I still  had the packet of colourful feathers which some people had used at the workshop to decorate their ostrich marionettes, so used some lime green feathers for his head and tail.

The 2024 version of the bird marionette, made for the Gregor raffle doll

The marionette controller, all I had to do was add the strings as the controller was made in 2016

Florence collected the push along duck from me soon after we got to the hotel and I found Dawn in the room where all the special doll raffles, helper raffles, displays and Children's fund auction items were being set up on the Thursday afternoon, so was able to hand over the marionette to her. Later, when she was setting up the raffle display she was entertained by the ostrich marionette it is possible to make him 'walk along' by moving the controller.