Exciting News! Launch of Sasha Dolls Cottage

My good friend Vanessa and I are delighted to tell you about our new blog featuring outfits for sale for Sasha, handmade by us in our homes in lovely West Cork. 

Sasha Dolls Cottage

Happy New Year everyone!

Toddler Claudius

Sweet little Claudius, he is such a lovely boy

Baby Sadie is having fun playing Sylvanian Families

Her pretty floral romper was made by A Passion for Sasha

Beautiful Molly, my JMD special girl

Comments are GO (hopefully)

 Cody:  None of Mum's friends said anything about my cosy new outfit!

Chrissie:  Oh Cody, don't sulk, it wasn't their fault.  Mum had changed the settings on the blog to keep the horrid spammers out, but she didn't get it quite right.

  

 Chrissie:  Mum says thank you to Auntie Susan and Auntie Dee for telling her.  She thinks she's fixed it now, fingers crossed.

Chrissie:  I really hope so, because we Sashas do love to be admired.

Cody gets Cosy

Cody:  MUM!!!  You haven't paid any attention to me for AGES!!!  This outfit you bought me from Ruth is lovely but it's cold now and I'm FREEZING!!!

Me:  Oh dear, I'm sorry Cody, I'll do better from now on.  And wait until you see what I've bought for you from hagnolly on ebay

 

 

Cody:  Oooh, thank you Mum, this is lovely and cosy

Me:  You're welcome Pet, and you look very snug now

More Festival Purchases

I chose Susanna to be the first to model this outfit, and the delicate lilac colour does suit her very well.  The skirt and jacket set were on Ruth's table, but made by The Doll Carriage - Denise Ortakales. 

Then I needed a blouse to team up with it, and found this sweet embroidered one on The Doll Works table.

 

 

I really should find another good photographing spot, you'll all be getting bored of this one :-)

Oh No!.............She's Gorgeous!!

My Auntie Jenny has kindly offered to make some Sasha clothing for me, and I thought it would be a good idea for her to have a Sasha doll as a model, so I was pleased to buy a nice blonde girl on Shelly's website for a very reasonable price.

She arrived yesterday and as soon as I unwrapped her I wailed the words in the title of this post. 

How can I send her away?! 

 

 

She arrived wearing this outfit, which is a fine corduroy dress and matching knicks by A Passion for Sasha.

She has a re-rooted fringe, which has been done very well.  She has a few nicks and marks, but nothing terribly noticeable. 

I thought I was safe as I already had a blonde girl, Alison, seen here on the right, but this new darling has quite won my heart.

She looks even more delightful in my treasured Vintage-Sasha outfit.  So I think my search for a dressmaking model will have to continue and this little lady won't be going anywhere.  And her name, of course, is Jenny

Festival Purchases

It's lovely to unpack the purchases, especially when you've forgotten what you've bought - lots of nice surprises :-)  The only annoying thing is, in some cases, not being able to remember who they were purchased from.  I wish I'd written it down whilst I was there, but I was too busy having fun!

So yesterday I dressed Alison in this darling embroidered cardigan which I think I bought from Ruth, shoes from Lisa and cute stripey tights from The Doll Works.  I had absolutely no skirts which would suit though so decided to quickly make one.  I say quickly, and the sewing part was pretty fast, but beforehand it took me about three hours to find everything I needed and clear the dining table!

Just found this photo I must share - my three girls enjoying the day at Dawn's house.  Chrissie, my Festival purchase, on the left.   Suzanna wearing a classic yoke dress I think I bought from Ruth, and Andrea wearing a purchase from The Doll Works



After the Festival.....

and the wonderful day at Dawn's house, my adventures continued as I didn't go straight home. I'd travelled over to the Festival in my MPV, and then took it to Nottinghamshire where it was booked in to be converted into a campervan!

I left it there and travelled by train to stay with my family in Lancashire whilst the work was being done. When it was ready I worked my way back through England, Wales and across to Ireland.

Now here are Julian and Chrissie to show you round my lovely new camper conversion.

Julian is looking very pleased with the outfit I brought home from the Festival for him, and he was also delighted to meet Chrissie, who was an impulse buy from Marie Morgan's sale table.  She was labelled as having falling hair, but I didn't care, I just fell for her beautiful face.  I got the adorable check smock from Ruth's sale table, and was delighted as I've wanted one of her dresses in that style for ages.



A couple more of Chrissie, just because I'm so delighted with her :-)



Friday Morning at the Festival

We enjoyed two fascinating talks with slideshows, here are a couple of photos of the shoe making one

Sasha Festival 2012 - Stratford upon Avon

I'm back in action and blogging from the Festival.  Sorry for silence for ages, it was a hectic time leading up to travelling over.  Andrea and Suzanna were the lucky girls chosen to come with me, and now WE'RE HERE!!!

It's wonderful to see everyone and all the beautiful dolls.  The first sight to meet our eyes in the Reception of the hotel were these beautiful dioramas - feast your eyes....

Caleb and Suzanna get new clothes today

Yay! More new clothes in the post today, this time from our lovely Lorraine (Sewing and Knitting for Sasha). Caleb is thrilled with his funky New Zealander duds and Suzanna was very happy to be given the pretty summer dress. It was too windy to go outside so I was trying to find a decent spot in the house. The windowsill above was a little too shady for Caleb so we moved to another one...

where Suzanna looks like she's turned into Alice down the rabbit hole and has started growing! How did that happen?

That's a bit better - anyway, you can see how pleased they are with their gorgeous new things - thank you so much Lorraine

p.s. I came to do this new post and was confronted with CHANGES! Arrgghh!! I hate changes. So, I'm in the html bit as I can't figure out what's going on in the Compose bit. This is by way of excuse in case when I hit Publish it's all a big mess :-)

p.p.s Where did the tags bit go?

A New Boy Arrives

I saw him on ebay for a very reasonable price and couldn't resist him. He has nice dark eyes which I love. He arrived with only his underwear and denim jeans and as boys clothes are rather scarce around here I had a job to find him anything.

His hair is a bit unruly so a cool DollyDoodles saggy beany is keeping it under control until I have time to give him a shampoo and set. His name is Julian, just because it seems to suit him, and I think he's happy to be here.

An Exciting Post Day

There's nothing that lifts the spirits like seeing that distinctive purple packaging peeking out of the postbox - it means goodies from DollyDoodles have arrived - YAY!

Cody and Sadie both got adorable new outfits, so at least there was no sulking. Here we are in my Mum's lovely garden this afternoon.

The Irish weather was doing its four seasons in one day trick, so we went from cloudy and dull, to bright sunshine to rain, and round again, so please excuse the varied lighting in these photos

So, two very lucky babes, and that's not all ....

Also in the postbox was this lovely Sasha Wardrobe blue sleeveless dress (thank you Dee!) which suits Alison so well. And for Andrea a sweet dress from Jadzia (skibniewska_1960 on Ebay) which she is wearing with JJ sandals that go perfectly with it. We're all feeling very lucky today

After we'd finished the photo session, Mum and I had a cuppa and she started teaching me how to knit with different colours, weaving the yarn across at the back - I think I'm getting the hang of it :-) A good day indeed

More Nostalgia

I'm still sorting through my box of Sasha photos and paper items and found two pages taken from old Hamley's catalogues. The one above is from 1984 and the one below from 1985.

Just look at those prices! Now where's my time machine, I'll stop by there on my way to the mid sixties :-)

Happy Memories

When my eldest daughter was a little girl (she's 29 now) she was my Sasha pal. I came across a couple of photos she took so thought my friends here might like to see them. In the one above, it was clearly Heather's birthday party :-) From left the dolls were James, Andrea, Natalie, Sam, Heather, Alberto and you can just see Elizabeth's hair. The only one still here is Andrea.

Andrea and Heather doing a spot of busking. Andrea's Tiered Yoke Dress was made for me by Evalyn Stiles and the pattern was in Friends of Sasha Vol 6 Number 3 Fall 1994

My daughter and I had many happy hours sewing together and here are some of the things she made, some all by herself and some with a little help

As you can see she was very fond of this skirt pattern, and every Sasha had to have a matching school skirt :-)

Happy times :-)