Sari Dress-up Day

Many years ago, when MamaT was in graduate school, she lived in a house with 2 kitchens and baths and 6 bedrooms and girls. One of her housemates was from India and wore traditional dress most of the time. She was also MamaT's all time favorite cook and got her addicted to Indian curry dishes. One evening the apartment pulled out Abha's saris and played dress-up, while Abha "dressed up" in western style clothes.

With this history, MamaT has always liked the Sasha Sari dolls, but they are not quite in her budget, so she thought she could make one of her brunettes into a sari doll and picked out some fabric that might make nice saris.

She also found instructions for making and wrapping saris. There is more than one way to correctly wrap a sari. She learned that a human sari is normally 45" (1.14m) by 6 yards (5.5-6m). Scaled down to Sasha size, that is about 9" (23cm) by 48" (1.2m).

You are supposed to have a half-slip to tuck the sari into. MamaT said she was too lazy to sew up a slip that won't be seen, so she used a rubber band instead.

About where the sari makes full circle around her waist, add 5-6 pleats. We hold these in place with a tiny safety pin.

Wrap the sari all the way around the waist one more time, and then throw it over her shoulder.
The Sari Sasha typically wears her sari over her head. It could also be left over her left shoulder, or brought around over her right shoulder, like MamaT and her housemates did. You can use another safety pin to hold the sari in place where you want it.
MamaT made two dragonfly saris and auctioned one off during the festival stay-at-homers raffle a few years ago. Here is the winner, Karen's doll, modeling her prize.
For some years, MamaT has envisioned making sari's for all the dolls, and as our Sasha family has grown, she picked up more bits of fabric to make Saris from, but the task of making us all saris become more and more daunting. One day MamaT's granddaughter found the fabric and wrapped several of us up and made this display.
MamaT decided it was as good a time as any to re-enact the sari dress-up day, even if all the saris weren't neatly sewn up like she planned. At least they were all cut to size. She decided that since there were 6 models in the original Sari dress-up day, just 6 of us would suffice for the Sasha sari dress up day. So here we are!
By the way, since you might wonder, MamaT is the one in green. The Sasha link we will share today is a site in Stockport, England that still has a few Sasha dolls and accessories for sale. ABCeta Playthings.

http://www.sashadolls.com/

Baby Sasha's Cradle

Shhh, Don't tell, but baby Sasha is getting a pine cradle for a birthday present. MamaT wants me to tell you she designed all by herself and built it too with a lot of help from her DH.

It is stained with a cherry wood stain.

The babies can't wait to try it out.

Tasha is making up the bed for the babies.

First, the mattress goes in.

Now to fluff up the pillow.

Doesn't that fleece look cozy, all in shades of pepto-bismol pink.

Now for the matching blanket.

And finally, the quilt to inspire dreams of dancing fairy princesses.

After making up the bed, Tasha thought she'd try it out, but she really doesn't fit.

Here it is, all snugly made up and ready to surprise baby Sasha.

Oh, and there's a matching nightgown too!

Baby Cara is modeling the nightgown.

Testing the comfort level of the fleece blanket and snuggling Pepsi Koala.

I think Cara's eyelids are getting very heavy snuggled under the quilt there.

The twins fit too, snug as a pair of bugs.

Sandra & Margot insist on snuggling with Koko and Pepsi Koala.

Tasha plays rock-a-bye baby with the twins.

Is 3 a crowd? No way, we say!

How about 4 (or 6 counting the bears)? Well maybe it would be tough to sleep like this, but who cares about sleep when we're having this much fun?

We can hardly wait for baby Sasha's next visit (she only comes over with MamaT's granddaughter), so we can give her the cradle!

And today's link to share is by Andrea of the Doll Works. She has lots of clothes and very cool accessories to choose from, plus knitting patterns.
http://www.the-doll-works.com/index.html

How Tall is a Sasha Doll?

We are called 16” dolls, but the book answer is that the English dolls ranged from 15.5-17” (39.4-43.2cm) and generally got taller as time went on, while German dolls were 16-16.5” tall (40-42cm).We got to comparing heights the other day just to see how we compared to each other. Do you see how much taller Lona is than I am?







So we all lined up and drew lines on the wall, and then measured the height of the lines. First time we measured, I came out the shortest of everyone. They started calling me Shrimpy Sasha. No fair. Here we are all lined up shortest to tallest with the Shrimp at the tail.
A week later, MamaT decided to see whether taking our shoes off would make a measureable difference. We all had our shoes on for the first round. She took my shoes off, and I stood as straight and tall as I could. Without my shoes, I was 3/8 of an inch taller than the week before. I grew! I grew! MamaT was not convinced. She muttered something about “must have measured wrong”. Then EVERYONE had to take their shoes off and line up to get measured. MamaT told us that's a lot what it's like to wait in line at an airport. I wondered if they had to measure everyone's height for some reason.

In round two, Kiltie grew almost as much as I did, and Patrick was next. Madie shrunk by an 1/8 of an inch. I think her wig adds to her height. I am mighty tempted to call her Midget Madie, but I'll try to be nice. I didn't like being called a Shrimp. Everyone else was within 1/16 of the first measurement (but even so most “grew” with their shoes off). What this shows is that depending on how we stand, you might get slightly different answers when making measurements. For one thing our legs are not exactly the same length (like real people you know). We had several ties in the first round. In the second round, we remeasured the ties for any subtle differences and got a different height for everyone. They are posted below the photo in inches and sixteenths.
Madie 16 4/16; Angela 16 5/16; Sasha 16 7/16; Cora 16 8/16; Gregor 16 9/16; Patrick 16 10/16; Kiltie 16 11/16; Shyvonne 16 12/16; Tasha 16 13/16, and Lona 16 15/16.

So in our little group we found the German dolls to be shortest. The one anomaly is Lona, who is most likely second oldest of the English dolls after me, but is indisputably the tallest at very nearly 17 inches. Everyone else seems to fit in with the theory that newer dolls were generally taller. So our little group is between 16-17” tall. That's kind of like MamaT and 3 of her sisters who are all between 5' 6” and 5' 7” tall.

Today's link is Lisa's dolls. She offers a wide range of shoes for Sasha kids and babies, a few dolls, and Sasha hospital services for the Great Britain area.
http://www.lisasdolls.eu/index.html

Trading Fashions - Sasha Style!

Lately the dolls on Sasha Street have been trying out a lot of fashions from other dolls. For example, the Best Friends Club (BFC) dress that we posted earlier that Lona is modeling.

Sometimes all it takes is an accessory to create a totally new look. MamaT's granddaughter loaned us this ballerina skirt, which Tasha adopted and refused to take off until it was time for Ryin to leave. Tasha has aspirations to become a dancer.

For poor Sasha's with a limited wardrobe, we found another way to "trade fashions." You don't so often see Sasha's wearing original Sasha outfits other than their own, so we thought we'd try swapping our original outfits around one day just for fun. For starters, we have Patrick in the pajamas outfit usually worn by blonde boys and Gregor is wearing Patrick's blue cord outfit.

Here is Tasha again without the ballerina skirt wearing Shyvonne's white dress, and Shyvonne loves Cora's flower dress. She also swiped the shoes from the BFC outfit Lona is wearing.

Here we find Angela wearing Tasha's pinafore and Lona wearing Kiltie's dress. This was taken before she took possession of the BFC dress.

Now Cora is wearing my newer Kilt skirt. We know this should traditionally be worn with my sweater, but it is the middle of summer, and we couldn't bear to subject her to putting on a sweater this time of year, so we substituted Patrick's white shirt from the blue cord outfit. We all think Kiltie Grace looks fantastic in Angela's white dress, and yours truly is wearing Lona's pink dress.

And lastly one more group shot of the girls just for fun.

I think I've been forgetting to add an outside link to explore on my recent posts. Here's a link for exploring some beautiful fashions by Nikita at Dreaming Under the Lilacs (Eseascaper7 on Ebay). http://www.dreamingunderthelilacs.com/

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.