Sasha Festival 2024 Day 1 - arrivals and gift exchange

The 2024 Sasha Doll Festival was held in Hotel La Tour, central Milton Keynes, UK from 20-23 June. it was organised by Petrana, with advice, help and assistance from Dawn L and many others. The overall theme was 'Embracing Sasha's Magic, Creativity and Friendship in England'.

The 2024 festival was local to us so we only had a 15 minute drive to the hotel, where my husband dropped us off with all our boxes, bags, dolls and display items. We arrived at the hotel on the Thursday afternoon to be greeted by several Sasha enthusiasts in the lobby, a wonderful meeting of old and new friends. Once we had checked into our room, we went to the refreshments area on the conference floor to chat with others, I handed over my donations to two of the 5 special doll raffles, helped JoAnn a little with setting up a Raffle doll display in the conference room and brought the festival journal down from Dawn's room on my trolley to Kim B who was setting up to run registration. Then it was time for registration, after which we entered the conference room for the gift exchange.

For the gift exchange activity, I had made a tweed skirt with a Shetland wool cardigan, wrapped it carefully and labelled it as instructed.

Melanie models the gift exchange outfit I made of a Shetland cardigan and tweed skirt

My daughter participated in the gift exchange, I watched and took photos. At previous Sasha festivals we have attended, the gift exchange has been done as a 'pass the parcel' activity in a big circle. This time, the gift exchange game was designed to encourage each person to talk about something Sasha related, our interest in Sasha, what we do with Sasha, which Sasha dolls we collect, etc. Janet had printed out cards with various topic options on them and the participants could choose which topic they would talk about when it was their turn. The first person was picked and chose a topic, talked for a few minutes, selected a gift from the bag and read out the name of the gift giver but did not open the gift. The gift giver became the next person to choose a topic to talk about and select a gift and so it went on. No one opened their gifts until the last person had spoken and received their gift, then everyone was instructed to open their gift. We found out lots of interesting things about each other and our dolls in this exchange of information and gifts, it was fun.

Janet explains the gift exchange activity

The gift my daughter received in the gift exchange game

Listening to Sasha stories during the gift exchange

Selecting a gift from the bag

Opening the gift

Wow - panda outfits for baby and toddler by Olga of Ukraine, donated by Kim O - thank you

Dressing our baby Nina in her Panda outfit

Baby Nina as a panda sitting with another baby dressed as a lion

Edmund wearing his panda hood and boots, Nina wears her panda onesie

The gift item we had donated to the game was received by Jane W.

After the gift exchange it was 'dinner on your own' so we popped into the centre to pick up a takeaway snack as we had our main meal at lunchtime when still at home. Then we returned to chat to others before going to our room.

Trudi, Trendon Elliott, Louisa, Melanie, Nina and Edmund in our hotel room

USA 2022 - Sasha festival part 3

Festival fun continued on Friday morning of the Sasha Festival after we had set up our 'Dress a Sasha' displays and had breakfast.

While voting for 'Dress a Sasha' was going on during the Friday morning, we enjoyed looking at all the 'helper raffle' items and the Children's Fund auction items (more about that in part 4). We also had enormous fun doing a photo shoot of the Shakespeare Dream Coat and Peggy's wonderful cape also inspired by a Susanna Lewis wearable artwork. 

Peggy's cape was placed in the Auction rather than part of the raffle doll. Peggy had chosen to make a cape was based on but not copied from Susanna's original 'Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder' (1977) which was Susanna's second tapestry/cape and was inspired by her love of the idea of flight. Although Susanna said she was scared of flying in aeroplanes she wished to commemorate her father's service in the Army Air Corps during WWII (Art to Wear, Julie Schafler Dale, page 87-88). So the original piece featured aeroplanes, clouds, angels and stars along with a quote from a war song "off we go into the wild blue younger, climbing high into the sun" around the bottom edge of the cape. Peggy's cape featured waves, swallowtail kites, butterflies and starry constellations. It is pieced and embroidered fabric, with very detailed hand stitched decorating. Peggy and I shared photos with each other when we were working on our respective wearable art pieces for Sasha in memory of Susanna, this is what Peggy said to me about her cape:

"It's based on Susanna's cape, "Into the Great Blue Yonder," but I changed the theme from military planes & insignia to birds and butterflies. Mine is inspired by Susanna's original, it is not a copy ... I focused on the colors of Ukraine and used swallowtail kites and butterflies rather than military insignia ... Lined in a night sky fabric with matching dress." (Peggy L, 2 May, via messenger)

Peggy also explained that Ellen C gave her much encouragement and support during the making of the cape, sent her a pattern for the hood and donated the wonderful Norwegian clasp that completed the cape so beautifully.

Peggy, JoAnn and I decided that we needed to take photos of both the coat and the cape together as they were unlikely to be won by the same person, so this was our only real opportunity in the busy timetable of the festival before the Children's Fund Auction took place that evening. We used the low podium and curtains for the photoshoot. We had not brought my tripod or my daughter's lighting equipment with us so had to make do with hand held camera shots and the existing lighting in the large conference room. My daughter and I took these photos using my camera.

Front view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Slightly different angle front view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Facing the camera front view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Back view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and front view of 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Back view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Slightly bleached out back view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Left side back view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Right side back view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum and 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Back view of 'Off we go into the wild blue yonder cape' for Sasha by Peggy L in memory of Susanna Lewis

Back view of 'Shakespeare Dream Coat for Sasha' by DollMum in memory of Susanna Lewis

JoAnn took these photos of my daughter and I during the photoshoot!

DollMum's daughter posing Peggy's doll and cape for the photoshoot (photo JoAnn S)

Dollmum getting down to doll height and taking a photo of the coat and cape (photo JoAnn S)

After the photoshoot it was time for the gift exchange. Each person who had donated a gift for the gift exchange (wrapped in tissue paper by the giver, then placed in a bag by the festival organisers) was asked to stand in a large circle and given a gift bag. The caller stood in the centre of the circle and gave instructions to hand the bags so many times to the right or left, sometimes asking individual people to unwrap a gift, or do a direct exchange across the circle with someone else, to mix things up. The gift exchange went on for a while, with some laughter. We had donated a Jadzia coat we had won in the raffle at the Dolly Jolly in May, plus a pair of large Christmas style woolly boot socks as a single gift, so my daughter took part while I watched the fun and took a few photos, but I've decided not to show them on the blog as this is very public and I don't have permission from everyone who participated to publish the photos of them in the gift exchange. My daughter was pleased to eventually receive a skirt and top outfit made from a linen tea towel. Melanie decided it would suit her and says thank you to Maria L who donated this gift.

Melanie wearing the gift exchange outfit my daughter received

Friday lunch was the first of the 3 meals when we received Festival souvenirs, there were no table hostesses though. The theme of this lunch was Christmas Cookie Exchange, so the souvenirs reflected that theme. We were each presented with a gift box. Strapped to the outside of the box were some wonderful paper dolls which had been created by Sasha enthusiast Carol Ann Sliwka in 2007 and reprinted for this festival in her memory.

The Friday lunchtime Christmas Cookie Exchange souvenir boxes with Carol Ann Sliwka's paper dolls

Inside the box was a baking set, some gorgeous little red oven gloves, a pretty hand made Christmas baking apron, miniature Christmas cookies in a tin and a wooden rolling pin. The aprons were different fabric designs. I didn't make a note of what the festival organisers told us about who made the aprons and oven gloves.

Our Christmas Cookie exchange souvenir gifts

Then the results of the voting for the 'Dress a Sasha' competition were announced. All the entries received a small prize for participating, with the first and second prize winners getting an additional prize.

First place 'assembled by' child

Second place 'assembled by' child

Third place 'assembled by' child

My daughter won the Teen category with the only entry. The little lantern prize contained a knitted snowman figure.

First place in 'made by' adult

Second place in 'made by' adult

Honorable mention in 'made by' adult

Honorable mention in 'made by' adult

First place in 'assembled by' adult

Second place in 'assembled by' adult

The other 3 'assembled by' adult entries all received honorable mentions.

This was followed by craft activities. We were given 3 different craft kits. 

My crafts - bucket of snow, sledge and almost completed felt deer

Some people chose not to do their crafts and went off to do their own thing (the indoor swimming pool was popular), but we sat and did some of the crafts. We started with the bucket of snowballs because it was quick and easy, moved onto the sledge, then I started on the felt deer, though didn't quite finish it as I ran out of black embroidery thread used for the blanket stitch edging. Thank you to those who compiled these crafts, I know how much time and energy it takes to assemble all the bits in advance, having run craft workshops for the Sasha Celebration weekends.

After the crafts, my daughter wanted to swim, the pool was much quieter by then so I sat and watched her enjoy the water (I didn't have the energy to get in the pool myself that day). Then we had some food before going back to the festival room for the Children's Fund Auction, but that is for another post.

Reference:

Julie Schafler Dale, Art to Wear (1986), Abbeville Press, New York ISBN 0-89659-664-8

USA 2017 - Sasha festival part 2

On Day 2 of the Sasha festival, we had a buffet breakfast with everyone else attending the festival in the big ballroom. Then we set up our Dress a Sasha entries in the room where the meet and greet took place the previous evening.  There were 6 categories altogether, 2 for adults (made and assembled by adult or assembled by adult), 2 for teenagers (made and assembled by teen, assembled by teen) and 2 for children (made and assembled by child, assembled by child).  In the event, there were no child entries and only one teen entry, in the made and assembled by category and that was my daughter's entry.  She was disappointed to not have any competition.

Several months ago when we were looking at what the theme was for the festival and the specific theme for the Dress a Sasha (Forever young - games and pass times) she opted to go for a game.  She came up with the game idea herself - Pin the tail on the donkey and decided upon the classic Winnie the Pooh characters because they play a version of that game with sad Eeyore the donkey.  She wanted to make it a birthday party game and she decided that she wanted her dolls to have the characters on their clothes - but how to achieve this was the next big question.  I suggested she draw the characters and asked my sister if she could print them onto fabric as she owns a printing company - though it is 6,000 miles away from us!  She told me she could print onto pure cotton as the inks she uses would not stick on poly-cotton, so when I went to Cape Town in March for a conference, I visited a large fabric shop (Fabric City) for plain fabrics and found some slightly thicker than I had hoped cotton fabric in pale blue and beige.  My sister also had some white pure cotton t-shirts in her shop so the designs were printed on 3 different fabrics, with space between them to allow for making several outfits. 

Pin the tail on the donkey - game (entry by DollMum's daughter in the made and assembled by teenager category)

My daughter also designed a birthday banner which was printed twice on the beige fabric (just in case there was a problem when sewing the first one, which there wasn't).  When I returned from Cape Town I was able to show her the designs she had drawn now printed on the fabric.  She had copied the classic pictures by Ernest Shepherd free hand with pencil on paper - her own interpretation of his drawings and had designed the birthday banner entirely herself.

I helped her adapt a pattern to make very simple t-shirts for Laura and Edmund (with no shoulder seams or need to set sleeves) however they required bias binding around the edges which she stitched on using the sewing machine then hand hemmed them on the inside.  Baby Amy's outfit was a bit more complicated - I had a romper pattern which she used, however it meant putting elastic into the leg edges, another technique to relearn as she had previously made the gathered shorts with sailing boats on them for Edmund.  She sewed bias binding around the neck and back opening.  All the outfits required her to sew on press studs, for the romper 2 poppers by the crotch and one on the back.  She was glad that she had trimmed the sleeves with lace, as it looked pretty and was quicker to do than the bias binding!  She made a skirt for Laura from a fat quarter of pretty fabric, gathered with elastic at the waist and a patterned stitch at the hem in contrast thread. 

Laura wore the Winnie the Pooh with Piglet drawing, Edmund the Eeyore drawing and Amy the Winnie the Pooh with his honey pot drawing.

The handkerchief around Edmund's eyes was an ancient one from my mother's collection of hankies (it even has a hole in it so she folded it so he couldn't peep!). For the tail I gave her several short lengths of grey wood tied with a ribbon and she decided to braid/plait it before inserting the drawing pin.

Edmund wearing the handkerchief, Eeyore t-shirt and holding the tail with its drawing pin and ribbon

The banner was relatively easy for her to sew.  In the workshop I made the stand for the banner, much like a simple doll stand with a thin dowel fitted into a base board (of plywood), however this needed two dowels the right distance apart and the base board needed to be no wider than 17.5 inches, to make sure it fitted within the 18 inch by 18 inch limit we had been given.  The dowels could not be glued in as the props had to travel flat in our luggage.  The fabric was folded over top and bottom and stitched, then folded over on either side to make long tubes for the dowels and stitched.  Simple but effective.

The Birthday banner behind Laura and Edmund

The stand for the Eeyore picture was a simple miniature wooden easel we found on a local market, she put a piece of card on it and the picture was printed out on A4 paper. 

Eeyore on the easel as Edmund tries to pin the tail in the right place

On the same market we had found the 'Winnie the Pooh - Eeyore's tail' book, this went in her display too.  Both Laura and Amy had patterned ribbons with a party theme from my collection of ribbon. Finally she decided that Baby Amy had to be holding something as she watched Edmund trying to pin the tail on the donkey, and we had a plastic rattle the right size.

Baby Amy in her Winnie the Pooh romper while holding her rattle

I would like to thank Inkwell Print of Cape Town for printing on fabric for my daughter's Dress a Sasha display.

My dress a Sasha entry was a favourite pass time - for a doll festival it felt right to enter 'sewing for and playing with dolls' as this is something I enjoy doing, an old fashioned and very useful skill.  This gave me the lead for period of costume - one of my favourite Louisa May Alcott books is 'An Old Fashioned Girl' - the story of Polly Milton who visits her rich friends the Shaw family in the city and becomes an example to her friends of truly embodying the essence of life in the face of financial poverty.  In one chapter, she successfully distracts the bored 6 year old sister Maud of her friend Fanny by helping her make clothes for her dolls as she sews clothes for her own younger sister's doll back home.  Later, even Fanny who has 'outgrown' dolls, gets happily involved in sewing for them, much to her grandmother's delight.

The book was published in 1870 and was probably set in the early 1860s period.  The book mentions that Polly wore simple grey or blue merino dresses with a bow in her curls.  So I bought some dark blue wool fabric and decided that Florence would be Polly for this display. However I didn't have a girl toddler for Maud (the perfect excuse to seriously look for one).

Setting up my Dress a Sasha display - An Old Fashioned Girl - sewing for and playing with dolls (DollMum's entry in made and assembled by adult category)

In my display 'Polly' wore a winter dress of dark blue merino of the 1860s, trimmed in an understated way, with black boots (the same boots she wore for my Dress a Sasha in 2012).  In the book she longed for more frills, ruffles and trimmings until her mother pointed out in a letter that true beauty is inside the wearer of the clothes, not the clothes. 

'Polly' in her dark blue merino dress, sewing for dolls

By contrast, little 'Maud' (my new Iona, Maud is not her new name), wore a fashionable slightly off the shoulder 1860s child's dress with puffed lace trimmed sleeves, red boots, lace trimmed pantaloons (which were just going out of fashion) and crinoline (just coming into fashion) to display her full gathered skirts.  I made the crinoline with white pipe cleaners and ribbons.  Both pairs of boots were made by Lisa Hartley (who delivered the new little red boots to me in record time).

'Maud' in her 1860s dress with crinoline and pantaloons holding her dolls

'Polly' and 'Maud'

I had great fun assembling all the items for Polly's sewing basket, however the basket itself was a particularly lucky find (on ebay) as every small basket I'd looked at wasn't the right size or shape.  I knew from Louisa May Alcott's descriptions that it had to be a 'work basket' and when this basket came up in the search results I was delighted. 

I had found some very tiny, short embroidery needles in their original packet in our local Oxfam shop, we already had the small cotton reels and sewing pins, the  tiny scissors from a sewing kit had ugly red plastic handles which I spray painted silver and I made the miniature pin cushion.  The trimmings were for miniature dolls clothes which I carefully rolled up and placed in two tiny dovetail boxes I had made years ago and placed them into the wooden chest.  The tiny buttons were for miniature dolls too, the bowl I put them in was also from my dolls house. Polly's sewing (a partly made skirt) includes one of the needles which was really difficult to thread as the eye was so small.

Polly's sewing basket, complete with fabric, needles in needle case, cotton reels and scissors

The reels of trimmings in their wooden boxes in the chest

The antique doll in the box was another lucky ebay find - she has a cloth body and a china head and lower legs and arms.

The antique doll (which came as displayed, only wearing a scarf, in her own little card board box) along with the pincushion and buttons on the table

I explained about Polly in the label on the display:

Polly has her sewing basket complete with scissors, cotton reels, sewing needles, pins in her pin cushion and a box with trimmings, fabric and buttons. She is making a dress for the antique doll as Maud plays happily with her redressed dolls.

An Old Fashioned Girl - sewing for and playing with dolls by DollMum (with the book in the background)

I will show the photos I took of the other Dress a Sasha entries in another post - they were all wonderful. 

After we had set up our displays we had a look at the others then went to join everyone else for the next bit of excitement in the ball room - the Gift Exchange.  Each of us put a number (our registration number) in a bowl.  The first person with a gift drew a number from the bowl and the person whose number was called went up to receive the gift, then drew the next number.  This worked really well. 

In the exchange my girl gave one of my toy kits and the Sasha sized Halloween felt glove puppets I had made.  These went to Ellen C.  My girl received a lovely white dress (made from a vintage tea towel) with a vintage mini Holly Hobbie doll to go with it, a perfect companion for Sasha.  Later she also received a surprise extra gift as Peggy had been given a super little American flag outfit by Shirley B and decided that it would be perfect for the youngest English visitor.  This outfit became Laura's (now famous on the Sasha Morgenthaler group on Facebook) travelling clothes as she explored the USA in our road trip after the festival. Thank you Peggy and Shirley for your generosity with this additional gift.

My girl at the Gift Exchange with Cheryl C who gave her the dress and Holly Hobbie

Sheila explains about Holly Hobbie to my girl at the Gift Exchange

We had some time to look at the lovely Raffle dolls on display before lunch, which of course everyone wanted to win!  We also looked at the amazing range of Helper raffle items, each with their own paper bag for our hopeful tickets.

Raffie, the Elke with repainted eyes, and her lovely outfits and accessories

Raffie and her accessories

The beautiful 'calendar girl' donated by Ellen C with her lovely outfits donated by several different people, one for each month of the year

'Calendar' girl and some of the outfits

'Calendar Girl' outfits

A long table of Helper Raffle items

Surveying the Helper Raffle items

Looking at the Helper Raffle items

View towards the Children's Fund Auction items from the 'Experts' tables, as Anne V set up her 'Expert' display

The next post is all about the Experts tables as Baby Mabel had her big moment.

If you've missed it, see part 1 of the Festival.