More berry picking

The strawberries are gone, but now it's raspberry season. We've all been picking our fill, especially Shyvonne who was a little reluctant to share her haul.





We also picked serviceberries and made a pie. Mmmmm. (aka saskatoon, juneberry or sarvisberry depending on your latitude--except MamaT and her botanist friends who would call it Amelanchier alnifolia.)

Best Friends Club Fashions

MamaT's granddaughter was out to visit last weekend. We love it when Ryin comes to play, because always get lots of action even if we look a bit disheveled by the end of the weekend. Ryin has a baby sundress (named Sasha after me! or is that Sasha Morgenthaler?) and she brought baby Sasha to play, so we were all excited to see her again, because she lived here for a few months before going home with Ryin. Ryin told MamaT that what she wanted most for baby Sasha was a swimming suit, and there's MamaT thinking, "Oh dear, I couldn't possibly sew a baby swimsuit, and I bet their hard to find."

As it turns out, Uncle Ted Menten saved the day. He's been talking all about other doll lines with clothes that fit us Sasha's. (See http://sashastreet.blogspot.com) Recently, he introduced the Sasha-L list follower's to the Best Friends Club line sold at K-Mart. So on an errand to town, MamaT and Ryin convinced Papa to stop at K-Mart, so they could have a look. She wasn't sure what would be there since other folks had posted they weren't stocked locally. Turns out there was a Best Friends Doll and 3 different outfits available! We passed up on the doll and the shorts outfit, because it looked like it might require altering (and later found out from UncleTed that was so), but went home with a brightly colored dress and a bathing suit. Ryin was so excited and MamaT warned her it might not fit the baby, but they tried it, and it DID fit (with only a few stitches to take in the straps in the back). Now we have a happy Sasha baby, happy Ryin and happy MamaT!
And here's the results....

A sun bathing baby

Out on the dock.

Lona likes the Best Friends summer dress.






Ryin says "Sasha can hold onto me all by herself!"

Strawberry Fields

The wild strawberries are getting ripe! We've discovered that if you wait until wild strawberries are entirely ripe, some other critter will get them first, so it's best to pick them when you find them. It is my opinion that a single wild strawberry, no matter how tiny has as much or more flavor than the giant strawberries you find at the store. Picking (and eating) berries are one of the many joys of summer. This reminds me of an old nursery rhyme.




Curly locks Curly locks

Curly locks, Curly locks
Wilt thou be mine?
Thou shalt not wash dishes
Nor yet feed the swine,
But sit on a cushion
And sew a fine seam,
And feed upon strawberries
Sugar and cream.

Oh, What do you do in the summer time...

when you're a young boy named Gregor?

First you take a moment to smell the flowers.

Then check out the wind chimes.
Love the dragonflies! After all they're bugs.

Take a ride in a canoe.

And throw rocks in the lake, lots of rocks, but they don't skip so well...

Now to add to my rock collection!

And admire my collection on this old stump.

Digging into a rotting log...

and exploring a hole with a stick.

I'm king of the mountain!

Giddy-up, horse-tree!

There's lots of trees to climb...

MamaT said this looked too dangerous, but I don't think so.
Lots of footholds in that thick bark.

Who do you suppose lives in here?

or here?

And what about in here?

Peek-a-boo!Did you know this moss is called "scared cat's tail moss"?
Ha ha. I think that's cool.

Now relax and watch the clouds float by.
That one looks like a dragon, I think.

Hope you're having an absolutely terrific summer!
What do you do in the summertime?

Crafternoon

The month has nearly passed without us making an entry here. The weather has been gloomy, and we Sasha dolls really don't like going out in the rain much. MamaT's been busy working both inside and outside and has left me free reign on the computer. One thing I've noticed about Sashaphiles is that a whole lot of them are extremely talented and creative, especially with sewing or knitting clothes for Sasha's and sometimes repainting our faces, or otherwise providing accessories for us. MamaT has made a couple of elementary attempts at sewing for us, and we hope she'll do more, and while she wouldn't call crafting her strong point, she has made a few things over the past couple of years. Today I've been going through the digital photos, and I'm going to show a few of them off to you without telling her.

First up is a necklace MamaT made last year. It's not anything she planned on, but she was in a hobby store with her husband, and while he was talking trains in the train department, MamaT fell for the stone beads and had time to find all the other ingredients for the necklace. She loves it, and later found a perfect pair of earrings to go with it.

Next we have a quilt square. In a weak moment, MamaT agreed to make a quilt square that in some way would represent Glacier National Park for a benefit fund raiser. She got the idea to create an image of Lake McDonald with the mountains and trees (larch and conifers) reflected in the lake. She was really happy to find fabrics at the store that worked just right with what she had imagined. She had never done applique before in her life, and so it was much harder and took hours and hours longer than she had bargained for. In the end though, she was so proud of herself she could hardly stand it.
Next we have a set of curtains started a couple of years ago. MamaT fell in love with the fabric, and just had to have it for her bedroom windows. When she got home, she discovered she didn't have enough fabric. She went back and bought the last of the bolt, but it still wasn't enough and she couldn't figure out a good plan B. So everything got stuffed in a drawer for a couple years. Until a few months ago when a friend came to MamaT's rescue and helped her figure out how to salvage the project and even helped a lot with the sewing. Now she needs to make a matching set for the second window....

In the next photo you'll see a bunch of spatulas that MamaT made as Christmas gifts in December. The uppers are in poplar, and the lower set in cherry. While the poplar was pretty and easy as butter to cut, they probably won't last as long. MamaT uses these spatulas all the time. She has one in every species they've tried out including, oak, cherry, apple, birch, myrtle and poplar. The cutting boards in the backdrop were made by her dear husband.

Several years ago, MamaT got a small window screen that she found was a perfect system for hanging earrings. After a while she found that her earrings were aggravating her metal allergy more and more and finally attributed part of the problem to the metal screen which was not helping matters. So she made this "hypo-allergenic" earring rack and replaced all her earring hooks with sterling silver or gold, and that has helped alleviate the allergy problem tremendously.

When MamaT moved into the house she now lives in, she painted the sunflowers on her mailbox. Last year the box was a target of random vandalism and was smashed with a framing hammer. One other box nearby (a standard plastic box) and several on a road about a mile away were also hit. Go figure.

So when she replaced the mailbox, this time she wanted a dragonfly on it, and since the stencil wasn't very big, she added flowers and butterflies, all representing species that can be found on the property.

Hope you've enjoyed these. Have a great day!

Where in the World are all the Sasha Lovers?

Happy April! One of the fun little features we found for this blog is a map that shows where in the world this blog has had recent visits from. You can click on a map for more detail on where our visitors are from. I've been amazed by all the places we've found hits from on the map, and we've kept a running list. I thought it would be fun to make a post about this when we hit 50 countries. By the time we reached 40 different countries, the accumulation of new countries really slowed down for awhile. But we had a new little flurry last week and reached countries 48, 49, 50 and 51 all on the same day (or at least the same week--we don't check every day). Today's entry is illustrated by a few recent random shots just for fun, including the Moni dolls who posed as Adam & Eve for a recent Sunday School class. We think they're so adorable, we're leaving them in these outfits for awhile.

I've tried to list the top ten countries in order of popularity or frequency of hits, but it's hard to tell, because I can't get percentages for the whole world at once or for all past hits--it only gives it for the most recent hits regionally, so places 6-10 and especially 10 are kind of guess. After that they will be listed in the order that I encountered them on the map.
1) United States
2) United Kingdom
3) Germany
4) Canada
5) Australia
6) Switzerland
7) France
8) New Zealand
9) Ireland
10) Russia
11) Netherlands
12) Belgium
13) Sweden
14) Czech Republic
15) Spain
16) Latvia
17) Norway
18) Portugal
19) Turkey
20) Greece
21) Bulgaria
22) Romania
23) Poland
24) United Arab Emirates
25) Iran
26) Saudi Arabia
27) Egypt
28) Oman
29) Finland
30) Denmark
31) Austria
32) Japan
33) South Korea
34) South Africa
35) Argentina
36) Chile
37) Israel
38) Italy
39) Brazil
40) Hungary
41) Vietnam
42) Taiwan
43) India
44) Ukraine
45) Nigeria
46) Phillipines
47) Slovakia
48) Slovenia
49) Malaysia
50) Guam
51) Mexico

And in closing, today's link of the day is Anita Adkins' page, called Sasha World. -- http://community-2.webtv.net/gadka/sashaworld/

Crissy & Velvet Correspondence

For those of you who are bloggers, have you ever come across something and thought, “I've just got to blog this!” This is one of those cases. For background, I should explain that while I was the only Sasha in the house growing up, I was by no means an “only doll” or a “lonely doll”. MamaT and her closest sister, AuntieN had an array of dolls that were well loved and played with. Besides me, MamaT had a Velvet doll (no not the 1981 Sasha Velvet), but an Ideal Velvet with blonde hair that could grow and retract, and was ecstatic to receive the talking Kenner Gabbigale from Santa one year, whose stay in our home was short-lived, because her voicebox didn't work, and she had to be returned and was never replaced, much to MamaT's disappointment. AuntN had Velvet's redheaded friend, Crissy, and her favorite doll, Susan. There was an also an assortment of dolls that their older sisters had left behind, such as Shirley, Samona, Poppy, and undoubtedly others. While Poppy seems like an unusual name, there was an empty field behind their house that grew California poppies in the springtime. At least, I think it was spring. In Salinas, it was hard to tell one season from another. They and their friends also spent hours and hours playing with the Topper “Dawn” doll family. There were one or two leftover strays from the Barbie family in the box, but they didn't see nearly as much use as the Dawn dolls.

So back to today's story, we recently unearthed a note between Crissy and Velvet. Crissy's note is encoded by being written backwards, so you have to hold it up to a mirror to read, so I will transcribe it, so you don't have to get a mirror out.

It reads: “Dear Velvet, how are you doing? I am lonesome for you. I am mad at Sosha now, because she said my hair is too long! I am best freind's with Susan again. I'll be glad when me and Sosha are freinds again tho. Who are [you] best freinds with now? Simona still? I hope so. You guys were always such good freinds. Love always, Crissy”

I tried to retain the original spelling, which the computer is reluctant to do. It keeps trying to correct friends. How do you like that I am only mentioned because Crissy was mad at me? I don't recall saying her hair was too long. I was probably jealous. Not only did she have longer hair, but I have always been a little envious of red hair. At least she said she hoped we'd be friends again, and I think we did make up again, so I will forgive her for spelling my name wrong, and Samona's too. And now for Velvet's response, which is on the back of the same sheet.

“Dear Crissy, Your handwriting is neat. I stil like Sumona. I like Shirly to, too, two. I fergot wich won. Poppy is being a brat! She's crying and sayeing nobody like's her any mor all the time. Mis Mousy is acting big! She say's the biger the beter. Really the biger the worse. The other stufet animals arownd here ar o.k. tho. Love, Velvet. Picture, Shirly, Poppy, Victoria Sumona, Velvet (me), Mis Mousy, I'm the Best.”

In some ways, Velvet's encoding is trickier than Crissy's, because the letter starts out backwards and needing a mirror to read, but as it goes along fewer and fewer of the letters are written backwards, so you can harldly read the thing either forwards or backwards. I love it where she got all the “two's” covered, but than she got the wrong “one”. I read this to the other dolls last night, and Shyvonne laughed so hard, she fell off the shelf, making a little “thunk” just as MamaT was drifting off to sleep. She saw Shyvonne had taken a dive and just left her to sleep on the floor for the whole night if you can believe that. When she reads this blog entry, she'll find out the explanation why Shyvonne fell off the shelf. To be honest, I always thought Velvet was my best friend growing up, so I have to admit I'm a little offended that she does not even mention me, or include me in her adorable drawings. But I think I should get over it, since after all these years, I'm the only one of the dolls that was kept long enough to become “real”.

Miss Mousy, who also got a bit of a bad rap in Velvet's note, is also still with us, so I've included a photo of her with Sandra, who is tugging on Miss Mousy's necklace as babies will, and a purple cow from the same era, whose original name no one can recall anymore. So as you can see, Miss Mousy IS big. Don't tell Sandra, but the irresistable new romper made by Diane Scarbrough she is sporting is just on loan until we give it baby Sasha who is in need of more clothes.

Just for fun, I've added one more photo of a few more old toys I used to know that somehow survived the years, including a cheerful old woman with oversized hands holding Sweet April, along with Raggedy Ann and Andy, Kanga and Roo, and one remaining Dawn doll dress, #217 Party Puffery to be precise. Most of these, we'd be willing to offer to collectors, but they are not in exceptional shape, so they will probably stay here.

And last, before I sign off, today's link is Karen Watson's page, who has a couple dolls and some clothes patterns for sale.
-- http://www.bestdollclothes.com/index.html

Sasha Memorabilia Book 4: Articles

Hello! Many apologies for not posting for so long. MamaT was out of town for two weeks this month, and we couldn't hitch a ride to the computer while she was gone. It's been awhile since I've included an entry about the Big Book of Sasha Memorabilia. I think this will be the last one, as we've already covered paperdolls and ads, cards, and catalogs. While all of these are just a sampling of what's in the book, they give you an idea of some of the fun things to collect about Sasha besides the dolls and clothes. One thing the book does not contain much of is patterns. MamaT claims she's not much of a seamstress and doesn't know the first thing to do with knitting needles. She's made a couple of feeble attempts at sewing and fantasizes becoming more proficient at it.

Now that I've told you what today's entry is not, maybe I should say what it is. The big book contains about 30 different magazine articles ranging from 1964 to 2008. MamaT had about a half a dozen or so more that she had the nerve to part with when she sold some duplicates. There's no way to include all of the articles here, so we've photographed samples from 10 of the color articles with the best pictures. That's not to say some of the black and white articles aren't excellent. They're just not as photogenic to include here. I do recommend clicking on these photos for a close-up view.



Rather than list out MamaT's personal library here, I'll just list those photographed here and give you the following links:
Susanna Lewis' Sasha Bibliography. The red dot articles are worth searching for. MamaT has all of the U.S. produced red dot articles, plus some others.
A few additional articles encountered by MamaT. This entry also includes information on books and newsletters, so it's a bit long-winded.
Neither list is exhaustive.


And now for the short "top ten" list.

--Menten, Ted. Great Names in Dollmaking: Sasha. Dolls, Summer l983, p. 36-39.
--Remise, Jac and France Broutin. The Sasha Morgenthaler Museum in Zürich, Switzerland. Doll Reader, Jun/Jul 1987, p. 126-130.
--Guinard, Mavis. Swiss Museum Preserves Sasha’s Magic. Dolls, Sep/Oct 1988, p. 44-47.
--Votaw, Anne with Barden, Ann and Knüsli, Laura. Sashas, The First Generation. Dolls, Dec/Jan 1991, cover, p. 64-72.
--Knüsli, Laura. Sasha Morgenthaler: Pioneer Doll Artist, 1893 to 1975. Doll Reader, Feb 1993, p. 111-116.
--Votaw, Anne and Knüsli, Laura. Sasha: An Entertainment and Commercial Star. Doll Reader, Aug 1996, p. 74-78.

--Votaw, Anne. Sasha Morgenthaler Creates Sasha. Doll News, Summer 1999, p. 44-47.
--Newman, Penny. Sasha Dolls, a Story of Harmony, Simplicity and Love of Humanity. Contemporary Doll Collector April/May 2004, p. 30-35.
--Osborn, Dorisanne. Sasha Morgenthaler's Boys and Girls. Doll Reader, Feb. 2005, p. 24-29.
--Ndouop-Klajian, Ruth. Playing with Asymmetry. Doll Reader, December/January 2008, p. 62-64.

The Bear, the Doll, and the Wardrobe

Hi, this is Lona here. Sasha says she's tired tonight, so my little friend, Pepsi Koala, and I get to introduce you to our Christmas present this year. MamaT found this nice green box at Joanne's Fabrics and left in on the table. While Pepsi and I were out exploring when the big people were away (and Cora followed us with the camera), we found the box and thought we might have a little peek inside.
Pepsi crawled up to the top of the box and pulled the zipper down, we opened it up wondering what sort of world might be inside, and what to our surprise, we discovered.....

SASHA CLOTHES!!! Pepsi was immediately attracted to the bear dress, but I'm partial to Cora's flower dress myself.
How do you suppose they put this thing together? The day MamaT brought it home, her DH immediately set to work making a little frame to hold the extension rods, because the box isn't really hard-sided. He used cherry wood, since pine is prone to leaking resins. We wanted to know how they made the extension rods too, so we pulled one down. We discovered they used two pieces of brass tubing, one just 1/32” larger than the other and a little spring the same size as the smaller tube, so it fits inside the larger tube, but not the small one. They chose a softer (as opposed to a stiffer) spring. They got these at the hardware store.

They made some temporary hangers out of copper wire they had laying around, which they eventually want to dip in plastic, the kind you dip your tool handles in, but that's not done yet. They just wrapped wire around a semi-triangular wooden block (with rounded corners), and wrapped the hook around the brass tubing, and trimmed it with wire cutters. Here's a link to another method for making hangers.
http://www.tinyzippers.com/hangers.html

Uh oh, I hear big people coming in at the door, and the clothes are all in a pile. Pepsi, we are so busted... Cora, where'd you go? Hey, we'll talk to you all again later. Lona & Pepsi Koala, signing off.