"Knitting for Sasha"

That was the title of today's Knitting Daily post - it's also available over on their website.

For those who are unfamiliar, "Sasha" is a brand of doll, originated by artist Sasha Morgenthaler. They were available when I was a kid but were remarkably expensive. (Kind of in the American Girl Doll range).

I wasn't a big doll person when I was a child, at least not in the "prime playing ages" (I had some baby dolls - an Effanbee and a couple of Sun Rubber baby dolls - that were mine when I was very small, but I don't remember playing with them). Between the ages of maybe 5 and 13, I was more interested in stuffed toy animals. (For a period of time, I wouldn't even draw people. I remember my classmates making a big deal out of it one day in kindergarten, until the nice man who was a student teacher in the room told me it was perfectly OK for me to draw animals riding in the London-style double-decker bus that we all had made out of construction paper. I'm sure there's some psychological reason why I wouldn't draw people and preferred playing with animal toys....)

I did collect dolls for a period of time when I was in high school through graduate school. (I still have most of them but they are boxed up at my parents' house. I have no room for them where I live now and I kind of wonder what I will do when they finally say, "Come take your dolls or we will dispose of them." I still have a FEW down here - I have the two Gene dolls I bought with great plans of making them couture wardrobes, and I have a couple other little dolls I've bought here and there. I keep thinking about putting a shelf up in my bedroom so they can all be together....And I should retrieve my few especial favorites from the collection - the old Effanbee Toni doll that I bought with a trunk of clothes that apparently her "grandmother" made for her in the 1950s, the red-haired Brickette (best known to some as the doll used as the "evil doll" in a Twilight Zone episode, but I still find Brickette cute), the now-mute Chatty Cathy...)

But even though I didn't really play with dolls when I was in the doll-playing age range, I kind of wanted a Sasha doll. Part of it was their expression - when I was a kid, the Gotz molds (like the one shown here) were still being used - the dolls had a mysterious expression, slightly sad, slightly wistful. I liked that; I liked it better than the broad silly grins many of the dolls available when I was a child had. I also liked that there were patterns available so you could sew for them. I also liked that they were "little child" dolls, that you could imagine them doing the same things that you did as a child - playing outside, reading, having play tea parties. I think the reason I didn't care as much for dolls is that THE doll among my friends at the time was Barbie, and I just didn't relate to Barbie - she was a grown-up, she seemed "prissy" (she would never go out and climb trees, but I could envision the Sasha dolls doing that). And sewing for her wasn't much fun because she was so tiny.

I never did get a Sasha doll. I suppose they were somewhat hard to come by, they were expensive, and I probably didn't articulate my desire for one as strongly as I might have. (Other things that my parents clearly knew I wanted badly, I got - I've referred to the Fisher-Price castle play set before, that was something I really wanted BADLY and I remember getting it one year for Christmas). I suppose I could buy one as an adult - one of the few consolations of adulthood is that your allowance is bigger, and one of the few consolations of single adulthood is that no one will question you on what you spend your "allowance" on, but I don't think it would be quite as magic now. (Also, seeing as I never could make the time to make Gene her glamorous wardrobe, I doubt I'd find the time to knit ski sweaters for Sasha).

But that Knitting Daily post did take me back - back to the time when I dreamed over the catalogs from Enchanted Doll House (I wonder, are they still in business?) and when I would check those big "Golden Hands" (or whatever they were called) craft encyclopedias from the library and look at the patterns for sewing or knitting for Sasha....