Dollies visit Devon and Cornwall

Laura and Melanie had a short holiday at the weekend when they visited Laura H and her wonderful Dollies in Devon then spent a day and a half in Cornwall.  The weekend included a model railway, the Dollies in Devon dolls house, lots of Mechanical pipe organs and a trip to the seaside!

Bill shows how to operate the trains in his model railway

Melanie and Laura were looking at the model railway

"Hello, welcome to our miniature railway world" said Sasha

"It is brilliant Sasha" said Laura

Laura was right, the model railway was amazing and quite extensive

My girl had fun rearranging some of the furniture and dolls in Laura's wonderful Dollies in Devon dolls house, then Melanie and Laura Sasha dolls visited their Devon friends in their home.

Doing the laundry

Sewing and ironing

Spraying the fabric before ironing

Dollies in Devon at home

"You have such a cosy living room" said Laura

Relaxing and playing in the living room

Melanie visited the Dollies in Devon band

Bathroom with shower

An unidentified doll along with a Kids 'n Kats doll in the Dollies in Devon house

The Dollies in Devon house garden is good for camping, puppetry and cycling

The Dollies in Devon garden also includes the barbeque which Laura won in the raffle at the 2012 Sasha festival

Walking the dogs and pushing the baby in the pram

The Dollies in Devon bedroom with bunk beds and plenty of toys!

Melanie visited the kitchen to find out what was cooking

I had made Laura H's Studio Doll Sela a dress as a test for the resizing of a pattern from 16" to 20" Sasha doll size so I could make a shweshwe dress for Dorisanne's Studio Sasha called Emmalee Rose.  Melanie was still wearing her version of the dress when she visited Sela. We also enjoyed looking at some of Laura's doll collection on the display she had bought from Dee at the Chat 'n Snap last October.

Laura's mini dolls on their display shelf

Melanie and Sela in their summer dresses and hats which I made for them

Laura, Davy, Melanie and Sela (who looks much bigger than her brother because she was nearer the camera).  In the background are some of Laura H's felted artworks.

Davy, Melanie and Sela

Before we left Laura and Bill, we had a couple of photos in Laura's garden where we'd sat chatting the previous evening before dinner.

In Laura's garden

After saying goodbye we drove on to Cornwall for a mechanical music event at a private collection.  It was a glorious sunny day in furthest Cornwall (we were near St Ives) so there were several visiting organs playing outside the collection.

Melanie enjoyed listening to a small Limonaire fair organ in the sunshine

Melanie relaxed in the sunshine while serenaded by the organ music

Laura and Melanie loved the nautical / pirate themed Dean organ which had once lived in Aberystwyth, Wales where its first owner had created the most entertaining façade and figures for the organ.

Laura and Melanie with the Ralph Jenkins nautical organ

"Have you seen the conductor Laura" said Melanie, "I think his clothes almost match my outfit!" "Yes, have you seen all the bell ringer figures - they're pirates and mermaids" replied Laura

The conductor was a pirate!  He even had a parrot on his shoulder who flapped his wings when the pirate conducted the music with his sword!  

The organ trailer was suitably labelled for the piratical theme!

The dolls had fun riding a rocking horse in the park nearby

"Look no hands as we ride the horse"

Inside the barn were several organs of various sizes. The one which amused Laura and Melanie was the Palm Court Orchestra - it was rather louder than it looked and it had seated figures which were wonderful characters.

The Palm Court Orchestra café organ

Palm Court Orchestra café organ figures enjoying Champagne

Palm Court Orchestra café organ figures enjoying afternoon tea

Organ grinder monkey

A very warm sunny day with the happiest music on earth was followed by a cloudy Sunday morning at the rocky beach opposite Godrevy lighthouse just north of St Ives.  Laura and Melanie were fascinated by the rock formations and asked their geologist friend Laura in Devon to explain what they had seen:

"The rocks are Lower Devonian  slates with quartz intrusions about 400 million years old. The quartz was a later addition when there was a huge mountain building in the Carboniferous period called the Variscan Orogeny about 300 million years ago when the slate was formed. It is used like the North Wales slate but is not as thin nor strong. The holes believe it or not are simply created by erosion primarily wave action and sea creatures."  (Laura H)

Pebbles on the beach showing the quartz in the slate

Layers of Lower Devonian Slate, some of them were loose and friable from erosion

The weird holes in the rock - they looked like air bubbles

Laura and Melanie found someone's pet rock painted with a picture of a glass of prosecco!

Melanie and Laura rested on the rocks as they admired Godrevy lighthouse on its island

"Look Laura, the lighthouse don't seem very far way" said Melanie, "Yes, but you'd need a boat to get there, it isn't safe to swim to the lighthouse island" replied Laura

Thank you to Laura and Bill for their very welcoming hospitality and Laura for all the information about the Godrevy point rock formations.  We had a wonderful time in our quick visit to Devon and Cornwall.  Below is a 'behind the scenes' photo from the doll and organ weekend.

DollMum's daughter setting up Laura's Sasha in the model railway room, which was her bedroom for the night

Easter Garden

Today Laura took Louisa to see the Easter Garden in Leicester Cathedral.  It had been set up inside the Cathedral around the altar, however there were notices saying they couldn't go close up so they had to content themselves with looking at the garden from the side sanctuary steps.  It was just before the afternoon service (Bach Cantata 'Der Himmel lacht! Die Erde juilieret! - Heaven laughs! The earth rejoices! BWV 31) and the choir was rehearsing with the small chamber orchestra as the girls admired the beautiful planting in the Easter garden and saw the 3 crosses on the hillside depicting the scene of Good Friday.  The altar had been used as the hillside containing the tomb, with the gap between the stone altar legs being the entrance to the tomb.

Leicester Cathedral Easter Garden 2018, with the altar being the tomb entrance

Laura and Louisa peered eagerly at the Easter Garden, they wished they could go closer as it looked beautiful

Laura and Louisa in Leicester Cathedral for Easter

Laura wore her Petrana dress with a cardigan and headband belonging to her sister Florence (made by DollMum) while Louisa wore her Sasha 2017 Festival dress by Lynn Field with strawberry cardigan and hat by Rosie Laird

When they returned home the girls were given Easter chick chocolates for being so good and quiet during the wonderful singing and readings.

Laura and Louisa with their Easter chocolate

"My chick is too pretty to eat, Laura"

Laura and Louisa (and all their siblings) would like to wish everyone a very Blessed and Happy Easter!

*****

It wasn't possible to position the dolls looking at the Easter garden from the front because the choir was rehearsing and it would have been very distracting for the singers. My elder daughter was playing in the chamber orchestra rather than singing and we brought her home afterwards for a few days holiday.  This week we'll be doing plenty of craft work in preparation for the Sasha Celebration weekend in May, 50 craft kits are being put together for the craft workshop on the Saturday morning and we have some red carpet outfits to make.

Skating in the snow

Inspired by the Winter Olympics and Dancing on Ice, the toddlers Edmund and Louisa have been practising their skating at a local rink.  However snowfall on the first 3 days of spring meant winter returned to the garden and with the pond frozen, they were keen to try skating outdoors.

Miranda and Timothy tested the ice first as Edmund and Louisa watched

"It seems strong enough" said Timothy

The pond was too small for much moving about but they could do a spin together

Gingerly the toddlers ventured onto the ice

The bigger children encouraged them as they started to slide across the ice

"You're doing fine Louisa" said Florence as Edmund watched

Soon they had more confidence that the ice wouldn't crack and the bank wasn't far away if they slipped over

The other children cheered them on as they skated about

Florence and Timothy joined the toddlers on the ice, though it was crowded on the small pond

Nicolas James fetched the sleigh

"Does anyone want a ride?" Nicholas James and Trendon Elliott called to the busy skaters

Louisa's legs were tired and she was keen to have a ride in the sleigh

The boys dragged the sleigh with Laura walking alongside as they went to explore the snowy wastes

The intrepid explorers set off with tired Louisa enjoying the ride

Louisa waved as the boys pulled hard through the deep snow and Laura trudged beside the sleigh

It was hard work and the boys were feeling warm despite the cold air so they didn't make the journey very long before they were pulling the sleigh back to the pond

Edmund continued practising his skating for a little longer before they all went indoors for hot chocolate and biscuits

*****

We planned this photo story as soon as we knew there was snow on the way.  We don't have a pond but that didn't stop us from inventing one from something which was normally quite hot!

The pond was actually a cast iron barbeque plate from a portable unit - it is a large round hotplate to go above the gas flames.  I laid it on the patio, made sure it was level and poured water on it which froze.  When it snowed we had to sweep the snow off it (about 2.5 inches overnight this morning after previous snowfall of about 2 inches) then watered it carefully again which froze quickly (the thaw hadn't quite started).  The doll skates did make marks on it though I didn't take close up photos to show this.

The 'pond' during the thaw later in the day

As anyone who has a Sasha toddler knows, they are notoriously hard to pose and with skates on in the snow there was an added difficulty, especially as we didn't want to spoil the snow close to where they were standing for the various parts of the story - we had to reach over untouched snow as far as possible without falling on our noses!

My younger girl was a willing helper, getting the dolls in position, moving them and attempting to get them standing and brushing the snow off when they fell over.

Setting up a sleigh shot

Shweshwe for Emmalee Rose

After visiting Dorisanne in August 2017 during our USA adventures and seeing some of her wonderful Sasha dolls, I thought about what I could make for one of them as a thank you for 3 hours of happy and memorable doll discussions. 

Dorisanne with Emmalee Rose, August 2017

Dorisanne's favourite Sasha studio doll in her collection is a dark hard plastic girl whom she has called Emmalee Rose and it occurred to me that my stash of South African shweshwe fabric would look really good on this particular doll.  I had bought several fat quarters when visiting Cape Town in March 2017 from a super little shop (which doesn't have a website) in Observatory, Cape Town which specialises in African print fabrics.  My new collection of fabrics included some colour combinations I wouldn't have considered before when making clothes for dolls, the traditional original colours (indigo blue, brown & red) for shweshwe prints have branched out into some wonderful, vibrant prints.  On a doll, it is important to be careful about scale of pattern and colours, so I had picked out prints which were small enough to not overwhelm a doll.

Emily and Annie (Heather Maciak dolls) inspecting my pile of shweshwe in the Cape Town fabric shop, the pieces I used for this Studio doll project are at the bottom of this pile.

I didn't have a pattern for a studio doll dress, as I don't own any Sasha Studio dolls, so I needed accurate measurements and a doll willing to model for me, even from a distance.  I wanted the dress to be a surprise, so couldn't ask Dorisanne to send me the measurements.  Suzanne Lewis in the USA was very helpful and measured her hard plastic studio doll for me instead, then Laura Horner in the UK agreed that her studio doll of a similar size could try on the prototype dress before I cut the shweshwe.

I decided to use the sundress with brettels pattern in the Sasha dolls clothing and patterns book.  This pattern had the advantage of no sleeves which meant that if I got the sizing slightly wrong, the dress would be more forgiving than if the sleeve setting didn't allow enough space across the shoulders or the arms and arm holes.  Also, the origin of the fabric implied sunshine summer days, so a sundress was appropriate.

I scaled the pattern up using the scale and copy function on our printer (16" doll size to 20" doll size) then cut out all the pieces using some other patterned cotton fabric in my collection (tiny brown leaves on an off white background).  I made a reversible sunhat and underpants as well in the same fabric.  I trimmed the brettels with pink ribbon and made the tassels from pink embroidery thread.  I made careful measurements of the finished dress then put the outfit in the post to Laura for Sela.

The prototype Sasha Studio doll sized sundress and hat ready to send for Sela to try on

Close up showing the brettels and tassels in pink

Susie, my 18" Palitoy doll, modelling the hat for Sela (her head is bigger than a 16" Sasha doll head)

Laura and I had fun with a skype conversation as she showed me the dress on Sela and we discussed adjustments.  It turned out that Sela was a later doll than Emmalee Rose which meant she was slimmer around the chest, so the bodice was a little wide, however Laura solved this problem by taking in the dress under the arms by adding a dart on each side, as Sela keeps the outfit as thanks for helping with the sizing.

Sela wearing the prototype hat and dress for testing the pattern sizing (Laura's photo)

Sela has lovely eyes.  She is vinyl rather than hard plastic and is a few years younger than Emmalee Rose (Laura's photo)

Sela with the hat brim up at the front and down at the back (Laura's photo)

After looking at doll size comparison photos in the Sasha books (including Dorisanne's book) which clearly showed the difference in chest and waist size for these dolls which were 10 years apart in age, I decided not to adjust the pattern for Emmalee Rose's dress, if it did need adjustment then darts could be added as Laura had done for Sela.

Then it was Christmas time and there was no time until after Christmas day to get started on the shweshwe dress as I was finishing off two other projects and just before Christmas I made a toddler sized version of the dress in some Christmas colours for Louisa. 

Louisa, my toddler, wearing her version of the dress for Christmas

I was soon sewing again before the holidays were over.  I had decided to make the identical dress for my 16" Sasha Cora (Melanie) as well as for Dorisanne's doll.  Because I only had one fat quarter of each piece of fabric, I had to be careful how I used the fabric. So with all the pattern pieces to hand for both sizes, I plotted out the fabric to use for each element of the outfit.  I had bought some plain fabric in two of the colours - fuchsia pink and a darker lime green to act as a base and foil for the designs.  I had chosen 2 different shweshwe designs (swirls and spots) in two colour combinations - lime green, pumpkin orange and fuchsia pink, which meant there were 4 different patterns of shweshwe in each outfit.

For the sunhat I used plain fabric for one side of the brim and the orange based swirl design shweshwe for the other side of the brim.  Each hat crown was made up of 4 pieces, different combinations on each side, so the hat is completely reversible.  The brim can be worn up or down.

I made the two outfits in tandem as this meant that changing thread colours and presser feet for different stitch types on the sewing machine was kept to the minimum.  I decided to make the tassels in all three colours as their background would be the plain green skirt at the bottom of patterned brettels and this worked well.

Front view of the dress showing the tassels on the brettels.  The underpants elastic was tied and left exposed so that it could be adjusted to fit Emmalee Rose's waist.

Back view of the dress with the other side of the hat (the colour of the green is not correct in this photo)

Melanie wearing the 16" doll sized outfit and her shoes from Dorisanne alongside the 20" doll sized outfit for Emmalee Rose.  Her hat brim is shown with the orange pattern turned up.

Melanie wearing the 16" doll sized outfit and her shoes from Dorisanne alongside the 20" doll sized outfit for Emmalee Rose.  Her hat brim is shown with the plain fuchsia pink turned up.

Close up of the tassels at the end of the brettels

After I'd photographed the completed outfits, the Studio Doll sized outfit for Dorisanne went in the post to the USA.  By this time I had alerted Dorisanne that a small package was on its way to her.  We both waited, Dorisanne was snowed in and the lake frozen so the mail was slow and I wondered if the package had gone astray (I regretted not sending it tracked).  She tried emailing me to let me know it had arrived but the email went astray!  When she resent it a week later I got the message.  Dorisanne was delighted with the outfit.  The bonus was that the sizing was fine (my hunch that adjusting the bodice would not be the right thing to do was correct). Dorisanne explained what she did next:

"The fabric colors look so lovely on Emmalee Rose. Two years ago when I was in rehab after my knee replacement, we were in a class where we learned to use our walkers. We each picked some beads to string on a long pipe cleaner which we attached to our walkers to identify them. I chose pink, orange and green and had put the marker on my doorknob but now they have been made into a choker-necklace for Emmalee Rose and it matches the dress perfectly."

Photos of Emmalee Rose wearing her shweshwe outfit will follow when Dorisanne is able to take some pictures.

I had a lot of fun making this outfit and now have more confidence about resizing other Sasha patterns in the book to Sasha Studio doll size.

Toddlers on ice

Dancing on Ice has been on TV in the UK for a few weeks with Miranda and Timothy having their photos taken some weeks and featuring on the Sasha group on Facebook. 

Miranda and Timothy during Week 2 of Dancing on Ice

Harriet, Miranda and Timothy during Week 3 (Disco week) of Dancing on Ice

However our Gotz Sasha toddlers Edmund and Louisa started asking for skating lessons.  On the principle that the sooner you start children on the ice (once they can walk and run) the better, their big siblings decided they needed to find some skates to fit the toddlers little feet.

Lisa Hartley made the boots and after looking up a few methods online, my girl and I decided that making the blades with wood was probably the best solution when we don't have all the tools or materials needed to make metal blades.

So out came my stock of lolly sticks, we also ate had some ice creams of a certain brand which have shaped wooden lolly sticks for the blade mounts on the bottom of the boots.

I used the bigger Gotz / American Girl doll ice skate blades as a guide for the shape of the blades and drew onto a lolly stick to fit the size of the smaller boots.  Cutting individual lolly sticks with the slightly complicated shape was not easy if done individually (I split a couple when trying) so the portable bench vice was brought into the house and I set to work with a razer saw, fine carving chisels and sandpaper.

Four lolly sticks side by side in the bench vice were cut and carved to shape while clamped together to make the ice skate blades

The blades glued to the base plates to make the skates

Once the glue was dry, I sprayed many layers (over several hours to allow drying time) of chrome coloured paint to try and get the wooden blades to look like metal blades.

The spray painted skate blades

This morning, with the paint dry, I glued the finished blades onto the base of the boots.

The Toddler Ice Skates

At Christmas time I knitted Louisa the long tunic sweater with front pocket (number 18 in the book by Jane Woodbridge and Patricia Evans), I used 4 ply wool but smaller needles to scale it down to suit a toddler rather than a Sasha.  Today, on the car drive to and from a birthday celebration walk and meal with family, I knitted a hat to match.  Edmund is wearing the hat and cardigan I made for him when he arrived a couple of years ago.

Toddlers Edmund and Louisa take to the ice in their new skates

Now they need to have fun on the ice getting their balance and learning some basic moves.