Chat n Snap 2022

This year Dee changed the theme of the Chat 'n Snap in response to the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The idea was to find a picture of the late Queen, King Charles or any of the British Royal family and replicate it with a Sasha doll or two. We had done some sorting through our large collection of clothes for Sasha in the week before the event and I had no time to make something new. We chose to depict Princess Charlotte as a baby in a smocked dress with a ribbon in her hair, because that style of clothes is regularly used for dressing younger members of the British Royal family. My younger daughter carefully styled baby Daisy's hair after dressing her in a smocked dress made by the late, lovely Marilyn H.

Baby Daisy as Princess Charlotte

Princess Charlotte with the Scottish piper

The display this year was in front of the St Ippolyts wall hanging rather than on the stage. It was a small but lovely display of several dolls depicting associations with royalty.

The Scottish bagpiper piping for the King

Katherine, Princess of Wales

A close up of the Princess of Wales

Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis

Modern royal children always wear very classic traditional clothes for official occasions, such as the baptism of Prince Louis

The late Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Platinum Jubilee this year

Jennie W made a replica of the late Queen wearing her Platinum Jubilee outfit

The late Queen Elizabeth II with her corgi, handbag and Paddington bear

A very regal outfit for the late Queen

Many other dolls had come to the Chat 'n Snap and were displayed on a couple of tables nearby. We had changed some of our dolls into fresh outfits, so Trendon Elliott got to wear one of the Sasha Festival souvenir outfits (the snow suit), Nicholas James put on jeans to go with the rainbow hoodie I had bought for him at the 2021 Chat 'n Snap, Miranda wore an outfit she won on the raffle at the Sasha Festival, Laura still wanted to wear her goth style outfit she had won in the raffle at the Dolly Jolly and Florence wore a dress I won in the 2021 Chat 'n Snap plus a jacket I bought at the festival. Toddler Louisa wore an outfit I bought from Lynne F at the Festival and Edmund wore his union jack waistcoat made some years ago by my younger daughter. 

At the Dolly Jolly in May we had won a baby Ginger on the raffle, along with her quilt, a second outfit and a teddy bear. Baby Amy wore the second outfit (made by Rosie Laird) and they shared two pairs of green / lime shoes, wearing one of each pair while playing with their monkey (knitted for me by a church friend last Christmas). While she was admiring our red haired baby twins at the Chat 'n Snap, Jennie W suggested a name for our newer baby: Robin.

Our babies Amy and Robin with their monkey, toddlers Louisa and Edmund, with Trendon Elliott, Nicholas James, Miranda, Laura and Florence behind them, surrounded by some Little Darlings, Teddy's BJD and Sasha dolls, with Hans the studio doll in the background

Alice's boys dressed in their shorts

Some of Alice's dolls on display

I think these Sasha dolls also belonged to Alice

Hans the studio doll, Curly and the rare Trendon toddlers

Gotz and Trendon girls in cardigans, with a pair of rerooted girls in the background

Three girls wearing name tags, plus a Sasha who I think belonged to one of the children attending the event

Three little ones with some unique hair styles and colours

An assortment of Sasha dolls

The two Jackie Rydstrom rerooted girls

I didn't take photos of the sales tables this year, except for this one photo of Trisha's beautiful sewing and embroidery, before the sales officially opened.

Tricia's lovely girls and needlework

We had limited ourselves to only buying for the boys this time as our recent sort out of all our Sasha clothes revealed plenty of dresses and outfits for our girls, with far less choice for our boys. We bought two pairs of trousers (cargo pants and corduroy trousers) from Ginny, 13 Sasha World magazines from Jocelyn, a Christmas sweatshirt and a Christmas hoodie from Dollydoodles, and some gorgeous fabric and tiny buttons from Jane.

Teddy had brought his restringing equipment and spent much of the time restringing dolls for people, I got a ring side seat for taking photos as Teddy and Alice were at the same table as us for the day.

A beautiful No Philtrum girl was restrung ahead of being shipped overseas to her new owner

The notorious Curly had his arms restrung (too much use of your gavel Curly)

One of the dolls whose arms needed restringing was Hans the studio doll.

Hans before his arms were removed for restringing

Threading through the new elastic cord

Teddy restringing Hans

Tying the knot in the stringing

Hans being redressed after his arms were restrung

Hans being redressed

Hans holding up his arm to show he can do so!

Close up of Hans, photo taken with my macro lens to show his beautiful Sasha hand-painted eyes

Another doll who attended the Chat 'n Snap was Amelie, the very rare Sasha baby who is a life size version of a new-born infant, she is made of some kind of wax compound so has a translucency to her appearance which does make her look very fragile and lifelike. I held her while my daughter Dmd took photos of her with my macro lens and camera on the tripod.

Baby Amelie being held by DollMum

Baby Amelie

Baby Amelie

Close up of Baby Amelie, taken with the macro lens by DollMum's daughter

We were fortunate enough to win 5 prizes in the raffle (which raised £400). Our prizes were two Dollydoodles outfits (sweatshirt, tracksuit bottoms & beanie, plus jeggings), some fabric (blue fat quarters), a green patterned pinafore dress, a tartan skirt and red cardigan.

Thank you Dee and family for another very enjoyable Chat 'n Snap.

Welcome Reuben

No, my Reuben is not the new bear who lives in Dee's Sasha Village.

Nicholas James stood on Mum's open Sasha book and
asked why the girls were all trying to hold baby Mabel at once

The girls put Mabel down.
Laura stepped on the book and told NJ to get off the book!

Baby Mabel was interested in the book

Laura and NJ continued to argue

Laura made NJ step off the book (and stepped off herself) but no one was watching baby Mabel...

... who had crawled beyond the book and was climbing off the chair!

Laura suddenly spotted what Mabel was doing

when Reuben arrived to rescue Mabel who was in danger of falling

Reuben grabbed baby Mabel

and gave baby Mabel a cuddle to reassure her that she was safe

the others were all curious about the new boy who had arrived just in time for baby Mabel

and, argument forgotten, climbed down from the chair to meet him

Baby Mabel saw Florence and put up her arms

"Hello, what is your name?" asked NJ

Baby Mabel jumped up and down with Florence

while Reuben shyly introduced himself
"I'm Reuben and I've come to live here"

"I'm Nicholas James, and these are my sisters Miranda, Laura, Florence and baby Mabel."  

NJ, Miranda, Reuben, Laura, Florence and baby Mabel with the Sasha books now carefully closed

This story line was made up by both my girls.

Reuben, a later Caleb, arrived a couple of months ago and went with us to Dawn's Sasha day in June.  But for various reasons I haven't had a chance to take photos of him until now and kept him under wraps.  For the past week he has been patiently standing on my sewing table waiting for me to reveal him officially.

I saw him on Shelly's site some months ago and bought him on layaway (officially I had no doll cash handy especially as we were completely redecorating two rooms which was horribly expensive even when doing most of the work ourselves).  As soon as I saw him he reminded me of a boy I once knew (more about that in another post) which is why he is named for my long lost friend from early childhood.  He came in his original clothes (plus a couple of additional clothing items) and I have made him a shirt from shweshwe at the same time as I made the elephant shirt for NJ.

The two union flag dresses are a repeat of the dress I made for Erica Mcleod.  Florence is wearing a Dollydoodles outfit I bought at Dawn's Sasha day, baby Mabel is wearing the knitted swim suit my girl insisted we bought at the same time.

I was very lucky to receive the first of the three Anne's Sasha book for my birthday (Sasha Dolls: The History by Anne Votaw, with Ann Chandler and Susanna Lewis), I had received the second book for Christmas (I wanted the pattern book first).  Both books are great, so full of interesting details.