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Monday 16 May 2016

Sasha Celebration weekend 2016 - part 2

It was Saturday morning of the Sasha celebration and the Sasha dolls in our room were stirring from their sleep.
Lucy the polar bear was snuggled in comfortably with baby Mabel and baby Nina
The miniature Baby Born in a push chair was a gift to my girl from Laura H when we arrived on the Friday - thank you Laura.
Florence, Miranda, Melanie (behind Miranda), Reuben, baby Leo, Nicholas James (as Robin Hood) and Betsy the Schoenhut girl were all waiting patiently for us to decide who would join us for breakfast
In the event my girl's red headed family and Trendon Elliott came to breakfast
Baby Amy and Edmund were still in their pyjamas!
Edmund was pleased to meet Rosie Shortell's two little German toddlers.  They are a similar size to the Sasha toddlers though a little chunkier, with large hands and big feet!
After breakfast those of us running the craft workshops set up our tables while everyone else waited in the refreshment area.  It did not take long to put out the waterproof tablecloth (to protect the hotel tableclothes from glue), the marionette kits, trays for small parts, marker pens, glue and feathers. Reuben was pleased to hold the marionette demonstration model while Florence held the prototype marionette which I had decided not to mass produce as it would have meant too many pieces of wood for me to cut to shape and sand.
Reuben and the marionette on our craft table
Everyone waiting patiently for the fun to begin
Janet welcomed everyone and explained about the two rooms, the 5 craft workshops and Kendal's glorious display of the entire Sasha brood.
The marionette craft table just before people arrived in the room to start
Kendal's studio and course dolls and wonderful photos
Kendal's production dolls - part 1
Kendal's production dolls - part 2
Kendal's production dolls - part 3
Kendal's production dolls - part 4
Kendal's production dolls - part 5
Kendal's production dolls - part 6
Petrana took a photo of Steve and family with Kendal, Chon and Liss beside the Brood
At the table beside mine Emma F was teaching an eager group of people how to make felt shoes or boots
Lorraine, Jocelyn, Alice, Liss and Shelly started reading the instructions and assembling their ostrich marionettes from the kit of parts
Iris and Ginger were also getting stuck into making the marionettes while the sunshine streamed through the big windows
soon Ginger was very proudly holding up her ostrich all strung on the controller
In the room next door the three other craft workshops were a hive of activity.  My girl was running a production line of face masks.  She made one for Kendal and two for her own dolls (Laura and a baby). She had tested out a marionette prototype for me at Easter time so knew what it was like to make a marionette.
My girl at the face mask workshop
The face mask for Laura which my girl made, using stencils, glitter glue and sequins
Jonny, Jo, Janet and Iris were busy at the face mask table too (yes, Iris is speedy crafter, it didn't take her long to finish her marionette and move onto the next craft)
Theresa was teaching the face mask making workshop
Judith (Dollydoodles) was teaching a large group of keen sewers how to make a playmat for their Sasha and Gregor dolls
Jane W had made a large number of knitted and crochet hand and shoulder bags to embellish with beads and other decorations - Paula, Dee, Jane and Ann were busy selecting and stitching
Meanwhile Lorraine had finished decorating her marionette with colourful feathers
Lorraine's flamboyant ostrich marionette
Lorraine's new boy Edward was very pleased to be the first to hold the ostrich marionette
Jocelyn, Alice and Liss were also decorating their ostriches with colourful feathers
Liss had gone for orange and yellow feathers for her ostrich
while Jocelyn had chosen her favourite colour turquoise feathers for her ostrich
artist Janet had given her ostrich the most amazingly well drawn eyes, quite unlike any of the others and had made her ostrich pink and turquoise
I was thrilled that Ginger had brought Finn to the celebration weekend for her first ever trip to England.  I had knitted for him in Lorraine's first Secret Santa Sasha swap in 2011 and he was pleased to hold Ginger's ostrich, now decorated with purple, pink and turquoise feathers on the table with Florence for the rest of the morning.  I was delighted to meet Ginger at last after 4 years of corresponding via blog comments and email.
Finn with his ostrich made by Ginger, standing with my Florence and the prototype duck marionette
people swapped craft tables as they completed projects and tried another throughout the morning (we had 3 hours for crafts), so Paula got started at my table
Judith paid a quick visit to my workshop to collect a kit as she was teaching her workshop and couldn't spare the time to do another craft at the same time.    
A new group of people were soon sitting at Emma's table making shoes
The elves and the shoemakers hard at work
following marionette instructions carefully
Laura H with her completed shoes on the doll sized lasts
Alison and Laura being cobblers and chatting
A gorgeous girl modelling a completed 'Robin Hood' boot
Paula proudly showed off her completed marionette
Fiona joined Jane at marionette making
while Liss became a cobbler
Kendal was on hand to talk about her Sasha Brood, Kendal and Liss enjoyed a chat while marionettes and shoes were made 
Soon Jane was walking her turquoise feathered marionette
Janet M was the last person to come along to make a marionette before lunch
It was great to have 3 hours for craft workshops - it gave everyone a chance to complete or try at least one craft and at least one person did 4 of the 5 workshops in that time!  Those of us leading the workshops could not try other crafts however some of us had made up enough kits for everyone to take away to do at home, so my girl and I have the shoe kits, my girl also got the playmat kit and Jane gave us several crochet bags to decorate.

6 comments:

Serenata said...

Great photos of everyone enjoying the fabulous craft workshops. They were indeed a lot of fun.

jamamy said...

Wonderful post, I have enjoyed looking at all our friends getting stuck into the crafts and the finished results too.

twizel said...

Thank you for sharing your photos of the weekend they are a delight to see. I took my marionette kit home and as soon as I get a chance I will make and post a photo. If I had to pick a winner form the ones you have shown it would have been Lorraine's.

Kendal said...

Have to admire all these photos that you took whilst managing your workshop tutorial as well. Loved looking and reliving all the workshop activities that produced such wonderful results by all.
Pleased to see that all your's and your daughter's Sasha family got to make an appearance in public at one time or another.
Thanks especially for the sweet photo of Bea!

shelley said...

lovely photos,thank you

Ginger said...

I really had a great time with your craft DollMum! I am not very experienced working with crafts but putting together that marionette and seeing Finn hold it was very satisfying and so much fun! Finn was also very exited about meeting you after all of these years and so was I. It was just the very best of times and I so love reading your blog posts because it takes me back there and the memories are so very sweet. Thank you for posting the events. :) xxx