She's Nuts!

Guess what Santa brought MamaT for Christmas! She got a new sewing machine!!! Not being much of a seamstress she has made do with a vintage 1968 Singer sewing machine (straight stich only), which has served well for mending and such and still works great (even though it is even older than I am). But lately she has been wanting to make some curtains and such and thought it time she graduated to something that could handle a larger variety of projects. We “Skids” (that's a term Johnny Raven coined for Sasha Kids) are secretly hoping to be the primary beneficiaries of MamaT's new toy. It bodes well that her very first project in testing out the machine was a Sasha sized gunny sack dress.

Here's the story on the gunny sack dress. MamaT bought her husband a bag of pistachios last fall that came in a nice gunny sack. When it was empty, she didn't know what she would do with it, but threw it in the wash anyhow. It turns out it shrunk substantially, and when she pulled it out of the wash, her first thought was that it was the perfect size for making a Sasha-sized dress. There was just enough material at the top of the bag (barely) to cut for the sleeves. Now MamaT says she is the last person to give out sewing advice, as her skills are minimal, but she is learning. In fact she is happy she only sewed the sleeves backwards twice yesterday. Once half a shoulder seam was facing out and had to be picked out, and once the cuff hem was facing the outside, but it turned out she needed to trim the sleeves shorter anyhow, so she just cut the hem off. That made hemming the cuffs a challenge. But she managed to finish it, and now Tasha (who you will meet later) has adopted it as her nightdress.

While I am posting, I am also including a photo of a very reasonably priced outfit we got not too long ago from seamstress, Diane Scarbrough, the same Diane who recently posted some cute smocked dresses on the SashaL list (and on Ebay as seller dfscarbrough). I don't think she has a website, so I will post a website for another fine seamstress, Sandy Wessel. There are many fine Sasha seamstresses out there, and it will take me awhile to post all their sites.

http://home.mchsi.com/~swessel/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

Lastly, I'm posting a Winter Wonderland photo inspired by Ted Menten's blog. MamaT used similar methods, so I was really not as cold as I look in the photo. And yes, it's possible to do a better job pasting the images together if you take more time with it.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas!!!

Cora and the Diversity of Sasha Dolls

Cora Morgen is my name, and it is about time Sasha granted me a turn on the blog. I have been after her to let me have my turn ever since I arrived in late July. She keeps on insisting we have to go in the order we arrived in MamaT's possession. How silly is that? Now by raise of hands, I want to see how many people out there really care that we get introduced in the order that we arrived here. See there, I don't see a single hand raised, and Sasha, you don't count. I wasn't asking you. I already know your opinion. And so I have had to wait around for Cara and Patrick and Sandy AND Lona all to take their turns first, not to mention several turns for Sasha. I know Lona, for one, would have been happy to let me go first. Then when it finally WAS my turn, MamaT got busy working on some job application and Christmas letters and she has absolutely been HOGGING the computer all the time. I know a lot of folks have been looking for a new entry for a long time, so I think you will say along with me, it's about time I got my turn.

Now you did get a sneak peak at me late last summer when I was priviledged to be the only doll MamaT took on an outing to Glacier National Park, (although Sasha and Angela Karinne used to live in the park when MamaT lived there). That was pretty amazing and so beautiful. I really liked the bighorn sheep we got to watch. I made friends with her granddaughter, Ryin, that day too. MamaT says I was a breath of fresh air after Patrick and Lona, because I was not the fixer-upper sort. I came in perfect condition, missing only my box. And that makes MamaT smile too, cuz she hates having boxes to store. I am a “warm-toned” Cora doll with a flowered dress produced by Trendon between 1980-84. There were 2 styles of flowered dresses. The other had a dark blue background, and both were very pretty, I think. In my former home, I had a brother, Caleb, and I still miss him, though my new family is very cool, even if Sasha can be a bit anal at times. Black dolls were first produced in 1972, as Cora, Caleb, and an unnamed baby girl. The earlier dolls had dark black skin, like native African born blacks. Beginning in 1980, they started producing lighter or warmer-toned black dolls, more like American and probably European blacks. In 1984, the baby girl was named Cara.

Now I want to talk to you about the diversity of MamaT's doll collection. She has a relatively small collection (by Sasha collector standards), but has tried to include as much diversity as her budget allows in our small family. Here is how the family (and our diversity has grown).
--First there was just Sasha, an English Frido produced blonde girl.
--Then Angela Karinne came along, so there was a German Redhead and an English blonde.
--Next is Gregor, so then there was a brunette, English Trendon boy, and 2 girls as above, one by Frido and one by Gotz.
--Next a dark black baby Cara is added, so she had a baby, a boy, and 2 girls, with black, brunette, blonde and red hair.
--Then another redhead boy was added, so there were 2 boys, 2 girls and a baby.
--Next we got a honey blonde baby, so we had every hair color produced in just 2 boys, 2 girls, and 2 babies.
--After that MamaT got a brunette 70's girl for her birthday, so there were blonde, brunette, and redhead girls, along with the 2 boys and 2 babies.
--Then she needed a warm-toned Cora doll and that was me. I am also the only short-haired girl in the family (besides the babies). Only one other short-haired girl was produced by Trendon, the sweater blonde. There were some unisex dolls produced in the 60's by Gotz that could be whatever the owner chose. And when I arrived, she had 4 girls, 2 boys and 2 babies.
--This fall MamaT got custody of her sister's 3 dolls, to be introduced later. Now she is beginning to get some duplication with a twin for Margot, a younger brunette girl, and a redhead trendon girl. But she likes having an English version each of a blonde, brunette and redhead girl.
--So what could be next to further increase our diversity? We still don't have a toddler or a fair skinned Gotz doll. A doll like Iona or Ollie could fill both of those roles. We could add South American Yamka and an Indian Sari doll. Then we still need at least one 60's Gotz doll, and a least one Limited Edition doll, like Kiltie or Velvet. Then one could go on and collect a doll in every outfit ever produced. Then we don't have an example of a course doll either or a custom repainted Sasha. And there is no end to the diversity represented in the studio dolls, but there aren't enough of those for every Sasha collector, so we stick with enjoying photos of those. These are just some fun fantasies, but we do love all the diversity in Sasha dolls.
--signed Cora Morgen
P.S. And speaking of diversity, for today's link, you'll see a number of example of customized repaints on Sasha dolls.
– http://www.dayco.org/pages/PageFiveTest.htm