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:

1. made out of one of Ann's patterns OR
2. made of recycled, used, etc fabric OR
3. made in a very traditional style (like you'd see on a studio doll) OR
4. 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.

Back view of the protea sundress

Patterned view of the protea sunhat

Inside lining of the protea sundress using the small print shweshwe fabric

back view of protea sundress, underpants and inside hat 

The protea sundress set for the Ann Chandler raffle doll

Feliz party dress

At the beginning of the year, former Sasha collector Trish posted on Sasha Mart that she had some Mary Engelbreit fabric fat quarters for sale.  I was lucky enough to acquire 4 pieces from her (4 different patterns but thankfully ones which work well together).  At Christmas I was given a book called 'Sewing Clothes Kids Love' by Nancy Langdon and Sabine Pollehn and was keen to sew something from this book for my younger girl before she outgrew the desire to wear quirky styled children's clothes (my elder girl would often say in her early teens that she hated the fashions for teens and wanted to stay in her age 10/11 clothes as they were much more fun and funky).  After studying the patterns and pictures in the book for some time and weighing up the various fabric remnants I had and the fat quarters from Trish, I chose the Feliz party dress on page 123.

It was quite a complex dress to sew, there were various stages which absolutely had to be followed in order otherwise the dress would not have worked, and it took me some time of studying the pattern and instructions before I had worked out what to do.  I had the added complexity of working out which fabric combinations would work together best and how much of each pattern or plain fabric I actually had available.  The dress is 2 layered - it has a full underskirt and an apron/pinafore type skirt (using the same pattern pieces) over the top.  My photos don't show that it has a bow at the back of the bodice.  I made the underskirt all in the same fabric and the overskirt was decorated with three of the Mary Engelbreit fabrics and a decorative ribbon.  The shoulder straps were meant to be cut to shape fabric however I opted to use the same wide golden coloured ribbon I used for the bow.

The bottom of each skirt is decorated with gathered fabric frills one of which I edged using a scallop stitch (I love my new sewing machine, it has so many decorative stitch choices).

The skirt is the kind of cut that floats out when spun around, much to my daughter's delight.

My girl wore the dress to church on Mothering Sunday which is when these photos were taken, however I have been entirely occupied in the evenings with a major voluntary project so have only just had time to edit the photos and write this post 3 weeks later.

Feliz party dress with Mary Engelbreit fabric

close up of the outer skirt (the inner skirt is pale yellow)

Update: Easter Day

Cutting flowers for our Easter Day table arrangement