Doll Olympic spirit

Yesterday afternoon the dolls all changed outfits to get into the Olympic spirit.  We had clothes all over the double bed, ironed a few things and brushed hair. I had ordered some union flag fabric for sewing which arrived a few days ago, but haven't had any time to do sewing during the week, so the material became useful background for the dolls who all came downstairs to watch the Olympic Opening ceremony. 

All the dolls dressed for the London 2012 Olympics

Central over the fireplace is the home made union flag my elder daughter made for the Queen's Jubilee and just below that is the commemorative coin my younger girl received from her school.

back row l-r: Elizabeth, Diana, Anna, Susie, Miranda, Peter
front row l-r: baby Mabel, Matroushka, Amelia, Jakob, Nicholas James and Florence

Florence and Nicholas James are wearing their Sasha Doll Festival Souvenir outfits (well NJ had never really changed out of his since the festival) and the other two pairs of festival trainers I'd got from Dawn Law found their way onto the feet of Miranda, who wears one of her raffle outfits and Jakob my Kids 'N Kats doll, who is all ready for sport in his boxer shorts and running top. My Susie wears the blue corduroy set which was the gift my younger daughter received for helping at the Sasha Festival Auction.  Anna wears her silver and red party outfit and a white cardigan I knitted for her.  Elizabeth wears clothes slightly to big for her, a spotty skirt which belongs to Anna and a white top, and Diana, the unmarked Palitoy doll who is my Susie's younger sister (I had bought her in my quest to identify Susie) wears the red and white running top and tracksuit bottoms which are a bit too big for her. Peter chose his check red shirt and jeans.

l-r: Belle, Jayne, Matilda, Harriet, Harry, Ron, Samantha, Hermoine,
Elizabeth, baby Mabel, Matroushka, Diana, Anna, Amelia

Harriet and Samantha wanted to rock it up for the Opening ceremony, so changed into their Rockstar outfits.  The Aussie girls made different choices, Belle went for a sundress and Matilda for her blue dungarees. Jayne got changed from her pink skating outfit into a red top and white crop trousers and wears her hair in pigtails.

Rocking it up for the Olympics

Matroushka  wears the other blue party dress and cradles baby Mabel who wears a blue and white check dress which is actually a bit too big for her, because it was made a long time ago for Amelia, who wears a red and blue and white check dress. 

Matroushka cuddles baby Mabel with Amelia nearby

Hermoine wears one of the blue party dresses and her Christmas white shoes, Harry and Ron didn't change much - Harry took off his green sweater to show his stripy rugby shirt and Ron put on his sweater, none of the other red clothes we had would fit him as he has big hands and is the tallest of the dolls. 

Rocking it up for the Olympics

And what an awesome spectacle the opening ceremony turned out to be.  My younger daughter slept during the afternoon so she could stay up and watch the whole thing with the rest of us and we all enjoyed it.  And this afternoon Diana doll is already practicing her backflips while the others look on, maybe she is hoping to win a medal.

Many of the gang ready for the Olympics

The Great Britain team coming into the stadium

The awesome copper petals of the Olympic cauldron -
what an imaginative way to do the flame

Thank you Hattie

After the Sasha Festival I received a lovely message from Dee, mum to the incorrigible Hattie and friends at Sasha Village blog.  I had received one of Dee's hats on the Friday night at dinner time, and Florence had claimed it as her own.  Dee had one hat left over and wanted to give it to my girl and Miranda, but didn't manage to do it at the festival.

Today a parcel arrived addressed to my younger daughter from Hattie (and Dee). 

The letter from Hattie

Miranda is delighted with her new hat from Hattie and it matches the dress I made for the Friday night dinner perfectly.  So after choir practice tonight (both my girls sing), we had a little photo session - Florence changed back into her dress from the variety of dresses she has been trying on in the past few days and was given the new purple shoes I had bought at the festival from Gayle's stand (we got Florence's lovely red boots from her too).  So here are some photos:

Miranda in her dress with the hat from Hattie and new shoes

with the addition of the lacy cardigan I knitted

Cuddle before bedtime

Fun before bedtime

Bed time story (the book is a bit young for both of them)

Now Miranda is trying to decide what Hattie would like, so I've been looking at photos of Helena Bonham Carter for some ideas...

Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 6

And so to the last morning of the Sasha Doll Festival.  We all met for Brunch in the downstairs room at 9:00 am.  My girl and I sat with several people we'd not spent time with before, so met more new friendly people, some of whom had travelled all the way from Australia for the festival!

Our table gifts were a wonderful completion to the Olympic themed set - little hooded tracksuits with London 2012 embroidered on them, a Union flag tote bag which contained a medal, a cup and a little Union flag on a cocktail stick, perfect for sport mad Sasha's to wave!  Christine and Chris Meatyard were the table hosts at our table and had provided a beautiful cake stands with little cakes for the dolls - so they can have a Jubilee tea party.  Nicholas James insisted on wearing his new white tracksuit straight away, while the red one is ready for when one of the girls get sporty (there was also a blue tracksuit).

A lovely waif

A lovely waif wearing her funky outfit

Table gifts of fun masks at another table

Peeping through the banisters at all the fun

Dawn did some thank you speeches and handed out little gifts to those who had been instrumental in helping her make the festival so successful.  Heidi talked about next year's festival, which will be back in the USA, and thanked Dawn for all she had done this year.

Dawn gives her thank you speeches

Brunch together

Our table

Girls playing beside the table

Heidi thanks Dawn

Then it was time to draw the helper raffle. Once again the children helped, this time bringing the prizes and the pots of tickets down from the Library where each pot was tipped into a bowl and a ticket selected for the winner.  My girl was thrilled to win two dresses (one of them she drew her own ticket, much to the enjoyment of everyone, Boo had done the same and their reactions were fun to watch).

Look at those excited faces

Then big tension while Anna Doggart drew the three special raffle prizes.


First was Amelia, the Cora girl with her red, white and blue American ensemble

Lucky Laura - her face was a picture!

Then Anna drew the ticket for William going to school

He was won by Annette, so will be travelling to Germany

Last of all Anna drew the ticket for the baby with her layout.

Joyce was amazed to win.

My girl was disappointed that she hadn't won the baby herself, but the chances were small (we'd bought the minimum number of tickets).

Then all of a sudden it was time to say goodbye to all our new Sasha friends.  We lingered for a little while, took some final photos and phoned for our lift (the caravan was all packed and almost ready to go).  While we were in the lobby having a final chat with Fran and Boo while we awaited our lift, the winner of many helper raffle items came up to us and asked if we would accept her giving my girl and Boo each one of her raffle prizes, she had so many and would have asked them to put them back but the raffle was going too fast for her to request this, so she gave my girl a little blue gingham dress with matching panties and hair bow on a clip.  What a lovely thing to do - thank you Diane S.  This particular dress has become Miranda's 'school dress' and is a big hit.

Farewell photo with new friends

I still have some photos to take of items we bought at the sales, and the dresses won in the raffle, but this is the end of my account of our first Sasha Doll Festival.  I would like to thank everyone who helped organise it - what a great event and I hope the next one is equally as enjoyable for the lucky people who are able to attend.

Sasha Doll festival 2012 - part 5

On the way to lunch on Saturday we admired Dawn Law's display of the baby nursery.

Lunch was held in the normal restaurant, rather than downstairs to save messing about with the room layout which needed to stay the same as the morning.  We sat at the same table as Fran, Boo, Karol and Dawn, her daughter and grandchildren.  The table gifts were lovely - a red mug with a pen, both labelled with the Festival name, and containing more of the outfit - shorts and top for sport, with an Olympic theme.  Dawn, our table hostess, provided lovely knitted sweaters and matching hats as gifts, I got white and fawn while my girl got white and pale blue, perfect for Miranda.  I had a good conversation with Karol, who told me about the dress she had made for the Children's fund auction and handed out sweets from Maine.  Dawn had arranged for a beautiful cake to be made celebrating the festival.

writing with the new red pen

Our doll family on the lunch table

Karol's lovely Sasha doll

The festival cake

my girl says thank you to Dawn for the lovely gifts

the girls play with the dolls in new outfits from Dawn

Fran's beautiful doll

The CFA was back in the downstairs room.  The children were happily occupied all through the auction by holding up the items for everyone to see, and taking them to the table for packing up ready for new owners.  I watched all 2 1/2 hours of the auction, helped Jackie a little with putting the bagged up items in a plastic crate, took photos and made notes of how much each item sold for, as I knew I probably wouldn't be able to bid on the items I liked.  Sure enough, everything I wanted went over my budget but it was fun seeing other people bidding, and hearing Pat say 'but its for the children' when ever bidding was a bit slow or when she felt something was worth more than the current bid.

CFA before the start

CFA before the start

CFA before the start

the dress Fran won

CFA before the start

smocking by Catherine French

CFA before the start

Bagging up the auction items

Boo's new baby

the item I donated, awaiting its new owner

Pat in charge of the auction

I was very gratified that the item I had made and donated (the sleeping bag & nightwear set) went for a respectable £45, and Tina told me afterwards she was very pleased to win it (she wasn't the only bidder), which made the enjoyable effort of creating it worthwhile.  And my girl didn't come away from the Auction empty handed - all the young helpers were treated to a lucky dip and what a lucky one it was for Miranda, as my girl opened a parcel with a new dress, pants, shoes and hair ribbon which perfectly matched Miranda's eyes.

opening the lucky dip

Boo's lucky dip prize

Miranda in her new outfit, donated by Rosemary Shortell

The CFA raised over £6,800 for 3 local children's charities (including Helen & Douglas Hospice) which was brilliant.

We returned to the caravan for some food, then I brought both my girls to the evening sales which started at 7:00 pm.  I was looking for shoes and managed to purchase a pair of turquoise sandals by Jean Jenson, as well as some red boots, purple Mary Janes and some baby shoes of pale green from other sellers.  I also bought two smocked items from Ruth Hartley (a dress and pants for Florence, and rompers for baby Mabel), and two hats (a cowboy hat for Nicholas James and a French hat for Miranda) from Jackie.  I haven't yet taken photos of all these items and didn't take photos of the sales rooms. My red haired girl admired a beautiful rewigged red head on Ruth Hartley's stall, but we couldn't buy her unfortunately.  Having now seen several reds 'for real' now, I know what I'm looking for, but will have to save up.