Sasha Celebration Weekend - Saturday

Saturday we were up bright and early for a hearty breakfast at 8 am.  There was quite a variety of breakfasts to choose from, fruits, yoghurts, cereals, pastries and cooked breakfast...

After breakfast we set up the craft tables ready for the day's activities.

I did a crochet workshop - making a crochet hat for Sasha

Doll Mum and her daughter set up their craft table - making a fabulous little train set.

Brigitte set up her table - restringing workshop...

Meanwhile...

...everyone started gathering in the coffee/tea making lounge area.

Lots of Sasha talk going on of course 

Joceyln's lovely Cora girls all lined up in their pretty party frocks.

Soon everyone was allowed in and gathered for the first workshop - restringing the dolls.

Brigitte showed us how to restring a early Gotz, an early Trendon and the later Trendon dolls.

It was very informative and she made it look very simple!

Brigitte will have videos on her website to show how to do this.  Brigitte's website can be found here.

The first doll restrung was Lee's lovely Gotz girl - Lee was naturally very delighted to see her girl back in one piece!

Two happy girls :-)

Next to be restrung was a brunette girl.

After that a very tightly strung Caleb was restrung.

There...feeling much happier.

Gillian was thrilled her Caleb was more comfortable.

Many thanks to Brigitte for a wonderful tutorial and for her generosity in sharing her knowledge.

Link to her restringing video can be found here.

Once the restring workshop was over, the other three workshops started.

A constant group was at the Crochet hat workshop and it was great to see some start, make and finish hats, as well as those who had a go at learning some of the basic stitches.

Some finished hats - Kendal holding a pretty Sasha modelling Diane's variation on the hat before the flower was added.

Pretty flower added.

Another lovely girl in her hat with a flower.

Paula with her pretty brunette and the hat she completed.

Ronnie enjoyed learning some stitches and puts her creation round her Gregor.

Janet held a felting workshop which I would have loved to have attended, but of course it is impossible when you are running a workshop to attend another!

Lots of concentration as they make felted birds.

The resulting birds were very cute and Sasha sized.

Doll Mum lead a very creative workshop making a little train engine and carriage and Henry was upset I couldn't take part in this, but we are hopefully going to sit down one day this week and make up ours.

Lots of fun painting!

After lunch the raffle was held.

Theresa was the lucky winner of the first prize Gregor!

Doll Mum's daughter enjoyed helping out and was also the lucky recipient of some wonderful raffle prizes as so many kind hearted and generous people gave their raffle prize to her.

Wonderful seeing all the great expressions captured on film!

I think I can safely say the raffle was a lot of fun - everyone was very generous and those who won multiple times kindly gave their gifts to those that didn't win anything and I think everyone came away with at least two prizes.  You can't ask for anything better than that, and all you kind and generous people out there who both gave to the raffle and those that also gave their winning ticket to someone else a very big thank you.

£634 was raised for the Save the Children Fund and this figure is doubled for the main Sasha Festival to be held in Fort Worth, Texas this year.

After the raffle we had the sales tables....

I shared my table with three others which was fun.

Petrana had a lovely selection of items for sale which sadly I didn't get a chance to look at!

More fun tables.

Judith of Dolly Doodles also had a sales table - but for some reason I missed taking a photo - needless to say things didn't stay on the table for long!

There was something for everyone and their budgets.

After the sales tables people were able to gather in the lounge area for scones that I made with jam and cream.  I didn't get a photo - but this is them just fresh out of the oven.

Later on we gathered before dinner for a chat.

Thanks for saving me a seat Henry!

Lovely people, lovely company!

We had two long tables for our meals.

The evening was finished with various groups gathering together socialising.

Sunday morning we met for breakfast and then a photo shoot in the meeting hall.

So many gorgeous dolls gathering together.

The barbecue was up and running.

Plus of course we can't forget the participants!

Some fun photos of us all as we pose for photos kindly taken by a couple of the husbands of attendees.  Thank you guys for being wonderfully patient!

Many thanks to all who helped make this event so special.  To see the idea that Janet and I first discussed only a few months ago last year come to such fruition was indeed wonderful.  The amount of work, effort and time Janet put into this was amazing - the proof being how successful and smoothly it ran.  Thanks also to Theresa and Tricia who stepped up as hostesses when I was finding things difficult, and of course all those who helped do the workshops and those who donated items for the raffle.  Thank you!

To finish I spied these two sending a message to Brenda....