Sasha Doll Style

1 November 2011

I am working on the new Sasha doll collection at the moment - Winter Shoreline...

The colours are beautiful...  taupe, sand, cream, sky blue, sea green, greys...  some are subtle and muted whilst others are strong and dramatic reminiscent of a stormy day...

9th September 2011

While my nieces were visiting Belfast, they loved to spend time playing with my Sasha dolls.

I only photographed a couple of their play sessions.  This was when they set up the puppet theatre.

They chose the dolls that were going to watch the play.

Decided on the characters and set about the play.

Behind the scenes...

I was just sorting through my photographs tonight before going to bed, moving most of them to the external hard drive for storage and I came across these photographs that were taken in May.  My nieces had been planning what they wanted to do while I was visiting.  

In this series of photographs... all the ones showing my niece (who is 6), were taken by me...  and all of the photos showing just the Sasha dolls and their toys were the actual photos taken by her with only a tiny amount of cropping.  Her grandma bought her the camera she is using for Christmas the year before she turned 4 and she has been taking photos of her teddy bears and dolls (without beheading them) ever since.  She was given her own camera after she accidentally dropped her mum's camera.

My niece had been planning exactly what type of photos she wanted to take.   Isn't it lovely the way her little sister watches what she is doing with such concentration...

She posed her baby Sasha (sundress baby) crawling towards her little toys...

She posed the dolls and took a few photographs...  Each doll is holding its own cuddly toy...

Then she spent ages getting her Sasha dolls to stand up.  I think I had to help a little with her blonde girl  Anna (schoolgirl).  But she succeeded in getting Holly to stand up and I just love how she has posed her baby Sundress...  such a lovely composition.  This is her actual photograph.

Then she posed Holly sitting on the stump from the old hedge holding a beautiful blue hardy geranium.

And this lovely photo is the result...  I didn't crop this photo at all.  

For little girls who lost their papa only the month before these were taken, they are a total inspiration to all of us.   

(I am known as Dolly Auntie aka Dolly Godmother... she is a fan of my Sasha Stories and has them on her favourites button on their laptop...)

The lovely new Marmalade Compote Collection is now available at Sasha Doll Style

It has been an absolute treat creating this collection and I am delighted with the finished outfits.

I have almost finished knitting all the tiny socks for the Marmalade Compote Collection.

They are a mixture of 4 ply wool and lace weight wool...  I love the little striped ones.

I love these outfits and how they are turning out.  The colours are glorious.

Ariel, Sandy and one of my waifs are modelling the outfits.

I love this outfit, it is one of my favourite so far.  I love the pretty fairisle yoke sweater and hat.  I shall be doing socks to match.  Haven't decided on footwear yet.  Haven't found the perfect shoes yet.

The outfit that Ariel is wearing is turning into an absolute beauty.  I love the fairisle sweater (patterned on back and front), with an edging to the sleeve and around the edge of the hat.  I still need to make the trousers and knit the socks.  Loving it so far though.

A closeup.  Love the contrasting colours in this outfit.

Sandy looks so cool in this outfit.  The sweater is a self striping 4 ply wool/cotton mix yarn in apricot, ivory, yellow ochre, grey, blue and brown.  I loved the wool that I have used for his hat and scarf.  

I have used a lovely tie dye needlecord for his trousers and have chosen laced leather Boneka shoes.  Haven't decided which yarn to use for his socks though.  Sandy is such a cute gregor.

This is the second preview set of photos for the Marmalade Compote collection. 

I love the colours in this set of outfits.  I was very lucky to find the perfect apricot Ugg boots the same colour as the cute duffle coat.

The apricot coloured finewale duffle coat is fully lined with ivory.  I used pale coloured wooded toggles and light biscuit suede for the loops.  The model is my Gotz Sophie.  When she arrived with me she had already had her eyes enhanced but I redid it.  

This sweater dress/long tunic is hand knit using a lovely hand dyed 4 ply merino wool.  It is truly beautiful.  I have used moss stitch for the panel down the centre front and back, the neck, cuffs and the deep hem.  The dress has raglan shaping for the sleeves.  

I haven't finished sewing in the ends yet and am still deciding what will be the perfect colour for her leggings/tights.  The dress looks gorgeous with the Ugg boots.  There will be a lovely ear flap hat with this outfit.  

This is just the start of this outfit.  I have the trousers and blouse made.  I shall be using two lovely contrasting shades of lace weight wool for the cardigan, hair tie and socks.  I adore these gorgeous pearl leather Boneka shoes.  They are perfect with Emilie's outfit.  Emilie is a Kelly Wenarksky repaint with pretty blue eyes and has a lovely long auburn hair (human hair wig).

As you can see they are not finished yet.  I was taking some photographs of the outfits to this point to enable me to decide what needs to be done for each outfit.  I always find photos at an intermediate stage really help.

I thought a few closeups would be nice.

A beautiful fairisle sweater.  I have used a self striping 4 ply wool for the green and a 4 ply ginger wool for the contrast.  I love the effect this creates.  I have teamed this with sage coloured needlecord trousers and pearl shoes.  I haven't decided on the accessories yet.  This is Maya.  She is a lovely girl from 1970.  I repainted her eyes because one was very badly faded.

A gorgeous self striping 4 ply wool sweater.  Lovely stripes of marmalade, apricot, amaranth, gold and purple.  Starla looks really cute in this lovely polo neck Sweater.  I painted her green eyes.

This cute summer outfit is finished.  It has a lovely swimming costume, cover up, patchwork bag, shorts, hat and slip on suede sandals.  This is Pippy one of my lovely Kelly Wenarsky repaints.  She has very vivid hair.

The colours are beautiful to work with from subtle...  to vibrant...

When I started planning Marmalade Compote... I hadn't realised what a huge variety of tones, tints and shades of orange, marmalade, ginger, tangerine, gold, rust etc there were...

As usual with a new collection... I started with a few photographs that really appealed to me...

And began collecting together, fabrics, yarns, wools, and buttons that worked with the colour scheme...

And now the outfits for this collection are taking shape and I love how they are turning out...

There are twelve delightful outfits in this collection...

And two duffle coats... 

one a very pale blush pink and the other the colour of summer berries...

Of course, I always end up with a couple of favourites in any collection and the first outfit in this photo is one of those...  I love everything about this outfit...

I love how the colours have worked together to create this collection...  

pretty and pink... without being 'too' pink...

As usual I have been inspired by the beautiful world of nature... grass... leaves... blossoms... 

I find a lot of pink a little bit cloying and sweet... yet... pink offset with other colours... greens... blues... paler ice pinks... can be truly beautiful... as we find in nature... this image is of a pink variety of Babies Breath...  I love how it looks against the green leafy colours in the background...

I love the pinky tones and beautiful starry blossoms of Astrantia...  I used to have Astrantia growing in the garden and it does make a lovely cut flower... the lovely green and pink wool is a unique hand dyed wool...  Some of the ideas developed in my sketch book have been used to create the new outfits for the Pretty in Pink Collection while others have not... 

Monday 21st March 2011

Just after Christmas... after some computer troubles... and the discovery that my software that I used for my website was no longer compatible with the new Windows software...  

This has meant that although my website Sasha Doll Style is still on the web I have been unable to update it or make any changes to it since early January... 

I knew that the time to give my Sasha Doll Style website a complete overhaul had arrived...

I have been working on the colour schemes for 6 new collections...

These are few photos that I took of the fabrics, wools and inspirational images for the purples collection.

I have started work on the outfits for the Pretty in Pink Collection...

I am hoping that the new website will be completed fairly soon... I hadn't realised just how large Sasha Doll Style had become over the wonderful years that I have been on the web...