My donation for the Children's Fund Auction 2023

This year we cannot attend the Sasha Festival in Portland, Oregon, USA, partly due to the expense of getting there from England and partly because the dates chosen clash with something else already booked before we attended the 2022 Sasha Doll Festival in Syracuse, NY, USA last July.

The 2023 Sasha Doll Festival theme is 'Sasha Rocks'. When the theme was announced at the end of the 2022 festival, I knew what my CFA donation would be.

'I still have faith in you' ABBAtar outfits for Sasha and Gregor

On 2 September 2021, Swedish pop group ABBA released the first two songs of their first new album in 40 years ahead of the full album and the ABBA Voyage show opening in London. I watched the two songs and as soon as I saw the outfits on the ABBAtars (the holograms of the ABBA members) on the 'I still have faith in you' music video, I wanted to make those outfits for Sasha and Gregor dolls, even though they were computer generated outfits and hadn't actually been sewn for the singers.

The music video is at ABBA - I Still Have Faith In You. The outfits on the ABBAtars first appear at 3:44.

I haven't yet been to ABBA Voyage ABBA Voyage Official Website - 2023 ABBA Concert in London, some work colleagues went recently and had a really good time.

The following is a screen clip of the ABBA Voyage website showing the ABBAtars wearing the outfits I wanted to make for Sasha and Gregor.

ABBA Voyage website

Soon after 'I still have faith in you' was released, I searched online for some suitable fabric and bought it, but it was a long time before I was able to start drawing up the patterns, because I was working on the Shakespeare Dream Coat for the 2022 Sasha festival. The theme for the 2023 festival served as the impetus to get started again once I had other projects completed (such as Trudi and Katherine's coats). 

I drew patterns for the tops of both the girls and the boys, these were based initially on a sleeveless bodice pattern for a Sasha dress. I wanted to avoid many seams because of the nature of the fabric (shiny stretch lycra) so didn't want any darts or seams for attaching short sleeves, they needed to be part of the top, to get the flow of fabric to hang better than arm hole sleeves would have allowed, and this proved to be the right decision for the fabric and scale. The boys tops were slightly lengthened versions of the girls tops, which I made first.

The girls have wraparound skirts. My initial designs were based on circular skirts cut on the bias, but this resulted in too much fabric around the bottom of the skirts which looked wrong, so I redrew them straighter to use less fabric. The front of the skirts have a shape to them with a lower point hanging below the imaginary hemline (the skirts and the tops are not hemmed at the bottom as it would have detracted from the hang of the fabric), this was based on watching how the outfits moved on the ABBAtars in the music video.

Agnetha's outfit

Agnetha's outfit

The fabric I had found for Anni-frid's gold outfit was a different type of lycra from the silver and turquoise lycra I had found for the boys and Agnetha's outfits, it is a glittery material which sheds glitter a bit when being sewn and is slightly thinner.

Anni-frid's outfit

Anni-frid's outfit

I made the long boots for the girls from the same silver lycra fabric as the boys tops, based on a larger boot pattern I found online (for 18" dolls) and resized down for 16" Sasha, plus adjusted to make the boots knee length. Only the back seams of the boots were machine stitched, all the other seams were hand stitched.

The boys trousers are the same silvery lycra as their tops, but sewn with the black side out, this worked well.

Bjorn's outfit

Bjorn's outfit

I made the microphones from wooden dowel, with the black side out of the silver lycra fabric glued and sewn on, plus some black and silver glitter netting fabric at the one end, with flat black elastic straps to help the dolls hold their microphones. The dowel and thickness of the fabric means they're quite a tight fit in the doll's hand, with the two dolls I used the grip of Agnetha (Miranda, blond green dress girl) is narrower than Anni-Frid (Laura, red haired white dress girl). 

Benny's outfit

There was quite a lot of hand sewing in these outfits though I used the machine for some seams. 

I commissioned the shiny black pixie boots for the boys from Lisa Hartley.

Shiny black pixie boots by Lisa Hartley

Benny's keyboard was a joint effort by me and my husband - I raided his workshop for possible pieces of timber which he cut to length. A piece of thick dowel, a piece of skirting board and a rectangular offcut from another project formed the basis of the design (the offcut length ended up determining the length of the keyboard which is slightly narrower than the one in the music video). Similarly, due to Gregor not having bendable knees it made sense to have Benny stand at the keyboard, so I made it taller than in the music video. Once all the pieces were cut, I drilled the two holes for the dowel to fit into, one end fits flush with the bottom of the base board, the other fits into the bottom of the keyboard which is made up of the offcut and the skirting board glued together.

Then I set up a cardboard box on a table in the garden for spray painting first the primer then the silver top coat on all three pieces, gradually building up primer on all sides, and sanding down gently with silicone carbide paper once dry (it was quick drying) before the top coat layers were sprayed on (also quick drying). The spray painting was done in one afternoon. 

The keyboard and the words on the front of it were printed on paper then cut out and glued on with tacky glue after the paint had dried.

Benny's outfit side

Benny's top and keyboard

Benny's keyboard

The following photos show Benny's keyboard partly assembled or in pieces.

hole in the bottom of the keyboard for the dowel leg

Keyboard: dowel leg pulled out of the base board

Keyboard: underside of the base board

I bought Bjorn's guitar new. The miniature 1/4 scale black guitar was branded as made by Babyaxe and my husband carefully screwed two tiny round head brass screws into it so a strap could be added. I made the strap from a silver glitter ribbon with elastic loops at either end. Putting the guitar on the doll entails hooking the loop onto the middle of the back of the doll, then putting the strap around the doll's shoulders and under his arm before hooking the other loop onto the bottom of the guitar, with the silver glittery side of the ribbon facing outwards.

Guitar underside with strap fitted

Strap fitting

Strap fitting

Guitar with strap

I had fun setting up the 'I still have faith in you' scene with our dolls Trendon Elliott as Bjorn, Laura as Anni-frid, Miranda as Agnetha and Nicholas James as Benny. 

I hope this donation is popular in the 2023 Sasha Festival Children's Fund Auction and raises some money for the children!

Bjorn, Anni-frid, Agnetha and Benny rocking it for the 2023 Sasha Doll Festival Children's Fund Auction