130 years since Sasha Morgenthaler was born

The Sasha doll groups on Facebook are celebrating 130 years since artist and doll maker Sasha Morgenthaler was born on 30 November 1893 in Switzerland, by sharing photos of our Sasha dolls with each other.

I have photographed a group of our Sasha dolls to celebrate the artistry of Sasha's dolls. There is a nod to her inspiration for the dolls in the form of Trendon Elliott wearing his evacuee outfit which I made for the recent Chat 'n Snap display, as Sasha was greatly moved by the World War II refugees who arrived in Switzerland and subsequently designed the various Sasha doll faces to be quite serious, they are not dolls with cheesy grins!

Her first Sasha dolls were the larger Studio dolls (20 inches tall), it was only later in the 1960s to early 1990s that her doll designs were recreated as 16 inch tall vinyl children and the 12 inch babies and 13 inch toddlers by Gotz and Trendon for commercial production. Our group is mostly Trendon (not the early Gotz as we don't have any of them) and our two later production Gotz toddlers, plus of course my only studio doll Trudi (1965).

Happy 130th Birthday Sasha Morgenthaler

Left to right: Toddler (Claudius) Edmund, (Caleb) Reuben, Studio girl Trudi on her chair, (White dress) Laura, (Marina) Florence, Toddler (Iona) Louisa, Trendon Elliott. Early Trendon babies left to right: Ebony, Davy with his pipe cleaner curled hair and waif Mabel (my first Sasha). They are wearing a variety of outfits by various people.

We won baby Ebony at the most recent Chat 'n Snap in the raffle. My elder daughter named her Ebony and said we should get her a little white kitten called Ivory, but I haven't found one yet.

Thank you to Sasha Morgenthaler for creating these beautiful dolls which have inspired so many of us to design and make beautiful clothes for them.