My First Sasha – Jane
We were staying with my aunt and uncle for a week’s summer holiday on their farm and my aunt had a mail-order toy catalogue that mum was flicking through one afternoon.
Mum wanted to find a really special doll for me. She came to a page where they showed Sasha Dolls all naturally posed like children. Mum thought they were the most beautiful dolls she had ever seen. But really they were a bit on the expensive side. Mum started saving up and had enough put by to order a Sasha doll for me for my Christmas present.
The doll arrived and was wrapped and put under the Christmas tree.
On Christmas morning, I can remember unwrapping my presents, mum always saved up and bought us lots of presents at Christmas, the usual sparkly slip-on plastic dressing-up Cinderella slippers, a blue cape with white fluffy edging… then I opened the Sasha doll…
It was the Christmas of 1968 and I was 3 at the time… Well, I can still remember clearly taking the paper off and just looking at the Sasha doll. She arrived in one of those triangle-shaped boxes because I can clearly remember being able to see her completely before she was taken out of the box. She had beautiful rich dark blonde hair and a navy corduroy dress with a white collar and navy shoes with white socks. She was just the prettiest doll.
Mum and I decided to call her Jane. Jane has wonderful hair with a full centre part which meant that I could put it into ponytails or leave it long and loose.
I used to pester mum into making things for Jane to wear and I can remember leaning against the table in the living room and asking mum every two minutes was the dress ready yet while mum was trying to get it sewn up on the sewing machine. Sewing was never one of mum’s favourite pastimes so very quickly she taught me to sew and knit clothes for my Sasha doll.
For many years Mum would tell me how she had always intended to buy me a brunette Sasha doll a couple of years later so that I would have two Sasha dolls but instead my brother and sister arrived instead!
The only time I ever saw Sasha dolls on mass was just before Christmas in 1985. I was a student in Leeds and I was looking for Christmas presents to take home with me. I went into the department store and was wandering through the toy department (as one does) and there they were. Sasha dolls. Beautiful Sasha dolls, and Gregor dolls, and baby dolls… I never knew they came in so many colours and hairstyles and sizes and shapes. I was mesmerized. I completely lost track of the time just walking around and looking at them. I decided I needed another Sasha doll… so I started saving up… When I had enough, I went back to the department store and they had gone… the sales assistant said that the factory didn’t make them anymore…
Fast forward many years, we had just got a modem which allowed us to get onto the internet and I had heard friends talking about eBay… I opened up the eBay site and couldn’t think of what to search for… Jane was sitting on the desk (she was a little floppy after years of play and missing part of her fringe) so I thought of Sasha dolls. Suddenly all these dolls came up… I had never realised that there was a second-hand market for dolls… I had just been hoping that maybe there would be a couple…
And then the Second – Sarah
For Christmas 2003 I became the proud owner of Sara, a 1975 brunette Sasha Red Dress girl with lovely big brown puddle eyes. She has perfect hair, long and straight with a thick fringe… She was my Christmas present from my mum and when she arrived in the post, I brought her down to let mum see her and we must have spent hours looking at her, standing her up beside Jane, discussing little differences…
The start…
Nikki Kernohan
I live in the beautiful city of Belfast in Northern Ireland.
The story of Jane and Sarah pretty much tells how I came to be passionate about Sasha Dolls.
My particular passion is colour. I love working with colour in natural fibres, fabrics and patterns. My inspiration comes from many sources in the natural world around me as well as the built environment. This wonderful world is full of colour from the subdued tones of a misty morning to the splash of colour in a bluebell wood.
My other website is the Knitting Squirrel.