Sasha Festival Raffle Features Sister Dresses Inspired by Sunflowers and Bees

A pair of handmade sister dresses brings the “Sasha and the Pollinators” theme of this year’s annual Sasha Festival in the USA into a raffle donation. Made for a blonde Sasha doll and a blonde baby, the summer outfits were sewn in memory of Millie Dingham, a much-loved Sasha collector and talented seamstress.

The donation comes from a maker who cannot attend this year after taking an overseas trip to South Africa. A friend in the UK who is going to the festival is helping get the outfits to the raffle, assembled by Heidi. The dresses offer a personal way to contribute from afar, with their bee and sunflower print tying directly to the festival theme.

Heidi described the raffle pair as “Sisters- Blonde Sasha and blonde baby in memory of Millie Dingham.” She recalled Millie’s generosity and sewing, including the smocked dresses she made for the 2013 Festival in Cincinnati. Millie also contributed sister outfits, and outfits for three dolls, to CFA auctions. For this year’s raffle, Heidi invited contributions that fit the pollinator theme.

Sunflower and pollinators dresses for the Raffle sisters

Print, lining and handmade details

The simple A-line pattern was designed by the maker for Sasha and her baby sister. The dresses use Sunflowers - Beehive on Cream, a Lewis & Irene fabric from the company’s May 2023 collection. Sunflowers, bees, beehives and small daisy-inspired flowers give the print several details to notice, while keeping the two outfits connected as a matching pair.

Bright yellow fabric lines each dress. The maker also chose floral buttons bought during a visit to a Boston haberdashery store with her younger daughter and a friend. That outing followed the 2022 Sasha festival in Syracuse, NY, so the buttons bring another small piece of the maker’s collecting travels into the finished donation.

The cut is intentionally uncomplicated, letting the print carry much of the theme. The yellow lining adds a coordinating color inside the dresses, while the floral buttons continue the garden motif at the back. Together, those choices make the outfits read as a set without requiring identical details on every surface.

The inside lining and back view of the Sunflower and pollinators dresses

A pattern still being refined

The maker is candid about the fit. She designed the pattern herself and says the dresses are not perfect: if she made them again, she would use deeper seams to bring in the shoulders and underarms. That adjustment would make the dresses less spacious and leave room for yellow long-sleeved tops underneath, extending their use into cooler weather.

That note is useful context for anyone looking closely at the garments. The current version is a summer dress, and its roomy shape is part of the result of this first pattern. The proposed seam changes are the maker’s own assessment of how she would refine it; the dresses were still considered suitable for the raffle, and she hopes their winner will enjoy them.

Matching underwear and hats were part of the maker’s hopes for the pair, but time ran short. Work outside her sewing has included local parish matters and tending her own garden and her elder daughter’s garden in North Yorkshire. Those garden visits also gave her time around pollinators, a fitting source of inspiration for a themed contribution.

Back view showing the floral buttons on the Sunflower and Pollinators dresses

Baby Daisy and Katie wearing the Sunflower and Pollinators dresses before I posted them

Before posting the dresses, the maker photographed them on Baby Daisy and Katie. The images show the matching outfits on the dolls as well as the yellow lining and button details. For festival attendees, the raffle pair carries both the season’s theme and a tribute to Millie’s long-standing place in the Sasha community.

The maker sends her good wishes to everyone attending this year and says she will miss seeing her doll friends. The finished dresses will make the journey in her place: a handmade contribution shaped by a shared hobby, remembered craftsmanship and time spent among the flowers.