Doll Mum's blog: Donation to Ann Chander raffle doll for 2025 festival

Miranda in the protea sundress for the Ann Chandler raffle doll

We are not attending the 2025 Sasha Doll Festival in the USA as we've had an overseas trip already this year. My contribution to the festival is an outfit for the raffle doll in memory of Ann Chandler, the raffle doll is being organised by Marti. She stipulated the following challenge for the raffle doll outfits:

Calling all talented makers: I am coordinating a raffle doll in honor of Ann Chandler and would love to have some wonderful donations. (We already have a doll!) In order to honor Ann Louise Chandler and her aesthetic, I am requesting that the donation follows ONE (or more!) of these parameters:

made out of one of Ann's patterns OR
made of recycled, used, etc fabric OR
made in a very traditional style (like you'd see on a studio doll) OR
Sewn by hand (yikes, I know!)

If you are a knitter, all bets are off and you can make whatever you'd like since Ann didn't knit much, so no guidelines apply!

Let me know if you'd like to participate or have any questions.

I met Ann Chandler at previous festivals, she was so knowledgeable and kind. I corresponded with Marti about what I would make and ended up picking a traditional style outfit from the Sasha Dolls Clothing and Patterns book (Ann Louise Chandler, Susanna E. Lewis with Anne Votaw), some recycled fabric and some hand sewing (though mostly machine sewn).

The traditional style outfit is the Sasha sundress with brettels on page 87 of the patterns book. I added a pair of underpants (also from the patterns book) and a very wide brimmed sunhat. The brim came out wider than an earlier sunhat I made because some of the fabric I chose had quite a large print on it for dolls and would have looked odd with a narrow brim.

The fabrics I chose were a remnant piece from my stash, source unknown, which I had previously used as the plain fabric in a complicated mix of fabrics in dress I made for my younger daughter when she was 10. The piece I had left over was enough to use for the plain fabric part of the sundress and I picked two shweshwe fabric pieces by Coral Tree Fabrics (South Africa) which matched the plain red almost denim washed look of the plain fabric - one (the bigger print) features South Africa's national flower the protea, and the other much smaller floral leaf print of an unidentified species.

In these photos Miranda models the red and white sundress.

I hope the winner of the Ann Chandler raffle doll has fun with all the outfits and the doll, I'm sure it will be a spectacular tribute to Ann.