21 July 2013

Sasha Festival 2013 - post 6

I had a bit of time to start photographing the mountain of new things that came back from the festival with us. Yes mountain, as they fill most of one suitcase (luckily we had plenty of space on the return trip after giving table hostess gifts and selling four dolls at the sales table). I'm going to start with a post about the official festival souvenirs. We received two three-piece outfits this year each with socks and shoes, plus another special gift.

From Friday's luncheon: a studio style dress with half-slip and pantaloons, plain socks, and black shoes. Kathy Weisner oversaw the design and creation of the dresses; Jean Jensen made the shoes, with special thanks to Frankie Rice who helped make it possible.


At least some of the dresses were made from repurchased garments - I was delighted to discover a nicely placed logo on the inside bodice of Boo's dress. How posh!


From Saturday's dinner: a smocked dress with slip and panties, ruffled socks, and black patent shoes. Millie Dingham designed and created the dresses; Lisa Hartley made the shoes.


There were several different dress colors, and many different smocking patterns (perhaps all unique, as I don't believe I saw the same smocking pattern on any dress). Boo and I each received a pale purple dress, but with completely different smocking.


Even more amazing was that the BACK of the dress was smocked too. What a lot of work!


Also on every table at Friday's dinner were little Sasha-sized tote bags. A sticker on the back says "2013 Sasha Festival - Hugs from Annette, Linda and Brooklynn".


From Sunday's dinner: a special gift for the people instead of the dolls, silver charm bracelets with a 2013 Sasha Festival charm. Heidi also gave an additional charm to each of the people she thanked for helping with the festival. I plan to look for suitable charms to commemorate the other four festivals I've attended, then add a new one for each festival in the future.


In addition to the mealtime gifts, there were several other official souvenir gifts that every attendee received. At registration we picked up our name tags, festival journals, and auction information. We each chose a little teddy bear too, which the dolls are holding in the pictures with the studio style dresses.


We also got nifty shoulder bags with a pocket designed for carrying a Sasha doll (you likely noticed these in some of my festival pictures). They were designed and made by Nancy Clem. I believe they were two-of-a-kind, since I spotted two (but only two) of many of the patterns.


Our final souvenirs came from the workshops. Neither Boo nor I were able to complete our felt animals as I was busy taking pictures and couldn't manage to even get the needle threaded for her. I've laid one set out so you can get the gist - something for us to work on when we're feeling crafty.


I didn't complete my worry doll either, but Boo made hers while I was roaming around the room. Cute! As you can see they're pretty tiny, roughly 2-1/2 inches tall.


Boo made necklaces and bracelets for all three of her babies, and I sat still long enough to bead a couple of necklaces too. Hard to read with the black beads between the letters, so I will likely redo them (sigh, I'm such a crafting failure).

20 July 2013

Sasha Festival 2013 - post 5

I have finished culling, cropping, and uploading my Sasha Festival pictures to an album on Picasa. I took over 1200 pictures this year, but deleted almost 40% of them because they were duplicate, too blurry, or unflattering. Those that remain are not perfect, but they all serve to document festival memories: Sasha dolls and Sasha doll enthusiasts, group meals and programs, Children's Fund Auction items, Dress-A-Sasha contest entries, and raffle dolls. I'm almost done ordering and captioning them to present the festival in an easy-to-follow format. Hopefully I was successful in my effort to capture the spirit of the festival so that it can be lived (or relived) virtually. Here is a slideshow of the entire album:



Clicking on the picture below will take you directly to my Picasa album. There you can see all the photos from this slideshow, along with descriptive captions. Feel free to email me or add a comment if you know of corrections or additional information for any of my captions.

Sasha Festival 2013

Keep checking back over the next week or so, as this is a work in progress.

14 July 2013

Sasha Festival 2013 - post 4

Time flies so quickly when you're having fun. Boo's babies posed for one last picture in the chair before we headed to brunch. Kitty is wearing the new bolero, since both Madden and Kelly already had turns.


Lots of people dressed their dolls in the smocked dress we received last night, so they were asked to line them up on a table in the front of the room. It made a nice display with the similar dresses and different dolls.


We did not receive another Sasha outfit at this meal; instead we received a gift for ourselves, silver charm bracelets with a special 2013 Sasha Festival charm (a tradition-in-the-making for those of us who attend multiple festivals). After we ate, Jackie and Marti announced the details of next year's festival which will be held in Phoenix. You know you want to be there, so start saving your pennies and plan for a vacation in late June.


Here is a picture of the back of the card we received, which gives all the necessary details. They also told us that the Dress-A-Sasha theme will be "Sasha in the 21st Century (2000-2099)", and that bringing a Sasha baby was recommended for one of the meal themes.


All of the children helped with the helper item raffle, with Elliot drawing the numbers. Boo and I were not very lucky with the helper items, and (very sadly) completely unlucky with the raffle dolls.


Baby Sunny was won by Tina.


The blonde with trunk was won by Cleo.


And Charlotte from the UK was won by Gayle, who was understandably rendered speechless. Wow!


I have a busy week ahead, but more festival-related posts will be coming when time allows.

Sasha Festival 2013 - post 3

Here is a picture of the studio-style outfit we received at yesterday's luncheon - my outfit anyway, since different fabrics were used for each. And yes, the Jean Jensen black shoes were included.


We could have sleep in this morning except I signed up for a sales table again this year. After breakfast Boo helped me get everything set up, and also helped staff the table.


We were able to do some quick shopping (and picture taking) before the crowd arrived. Not that we did all of our shopping early, as we kept on browsing and buying pretty much the whole time. Boo found some gifts to bring home for Calla and Rose, and a little pink romper for "prize doll" Kelly; I bought several dresses and two pairs of adorable summer sandals.


I do believe one lucky girl has a new doll. :-)


We grabbed lunch at the hotel restaurant since Boo had a Dress-A-Sasha entry to set up. Nothing extravagant, but she had fun doing it and was thrilled to win a prize.


This was my favorite entry in the "adult made by entrant category", and the winner as well.


Once we had voted for our favorites we finally had some free time. Boo went for a swim while I relaxed by the pool and caught up with the news online.


Dinner's theme was "Happy Birthday, Sasha M,", so I'd made party hats. I brought enough for everyone at the table ... and the other little girls ... and a few big girls who admired them as well. Boo kept asking why I was making so many, but it's fun to have little things to give to people even when you're not the table hostess. If you ever want to make hats for your dolls, here's where I found the template and instructions: Make it Do.


We received a second full outfit at dinner, this time a smocked dress, slip, and panties made by Millie Dingham (she made all 100ish of them herself in a variety of colors and smocking patterns), and shoes made by Ruth Hartley. I took a quick picture of my dress; Boo and I both wound up with purple, though they are not identical.


After dinner and birthday cake for Sasha's 120th, Anne Votow gave a fantastic slideshow presentation about Sasha Morgenthaler that focused on the studio dolls. I think this was my favorite slide.


She also had a display of studio dolls, some in original outfits and some redressed for a white dress theme. Stunning! I feel so fortunate to have been able to see so many studio dolls in person at recent festivals.


The babies had fun in their party dresses and hats, made glittery by Boo especially for them, but they were getting tired by the time the festivities ended. I think we all are at this point, since so much gets squeezed into such a short time - not just activities, but socializing too.


I've packed a bit, but still have a lot to do in the morning before brunch and checkout. Time for me to get some sleep .... ZZZzzzzz

13 July 2013

Sasha Festival 2013 - post 2

Whew, what a whirlwind day!!

After a quick breakfast it was time for crafty workshops. I spent most of my time taking pictures, but here's proof that I am capable of creative output on occasion - I made these outfits for Ted's Pinafore Challenge a couple of years ago.


Here's Boo sifting through the bead container. She made necklaces and bracelets for all her babies. There were also kits to sew a little felt frog and turtle, and make a little "worry doll".


I got to spend some time with my bestest-Sasha-friend Tina, who multitasked crafting with texting.


Boo and I were table hostesses at today's luncheon. We shared a table with Dawn and several wonderful festival newbies. The gifts we gave are tucked inside the miniature milk crates - I'll save the details for a later post. We each received an outfit from the festival as well: a studio-style dress, slip, and pantaloons, plus socks and Jean Jensen shoes. Unfortunately I haven't taken any pictures of the outfit yet, but will try to include it in tomorrow's post.


Lunch was followed by a presentation by Anne Votow about Sasha in advertising. Susanna was unable to make it due to weather-related flight cancellations, so Anne stepped in and did a marvelous job .


She had slides, and also a display with various products that used Sasha dolls in their advertising.


Someone asked Anne to pose with the display, and I managed to capture this happy picture.


Anne then asked Ann to join her (Ann had helped a bit with the presentation). I joked it was just two Anns, so Anne included Susanna in absentia. They really are a great trio, and not just when it comes to writing Sasha books.


Next was the Yankee Gift Exchange, lots of lovely gifts waiting to be opened ... and occasionally swapped.


There was a swap for the kids first, then Boo proceeded to play with her new friend and their new goodies.


She helped me choose a gift when it was my turn. I didn't realize until I transferred photos to my iPad this evening that someone (Tina?) took pictures of us walking back to our seat.


We bought tickets for the helper items and raffle dolls and I took more pictures. Lots more; it's going to take a while to add labels and create my slideshow and photo album after the festival this year. After a quick dinner it was time for the Children's Fund Auction. The preliminary tally was $8641 raised! Great to see Elliot again this year, helping show the items during the auction.


Boo helped out too. Here she is with a basket of some of the sweaters make in Erica McLeod's memory - 39 sweaters by various knitters were created for this effort.


We won two auction items. Boo asked me to bid on this sweet baby outfit, a romper made by Carol Mitchell and bolero and booties by Erica.


I couldn't resist the Wizard of Oz costumes made by Geraldine Brodt. Hopefully I can get them home in my luggage safely. Given what successfully made it home from England with us last year, it shouldn't be too much of a problem


I took this picture of Boo's babies while she was in the shower. Kelly has changed into the new auction outfit; Boo decided she must be a wealthy baby to have such nice clothes. I'm not sure if you can read all their necklaces, but Kitty's says "BOOS DOLL", Kelly's says "PRIZE DOLL", and Madden's says "COOL DOLL". Boo is sleeping soundly as I finish typing this post, and it's time for me to do the same.