Dilly's Dolly Blog: Daisy in York Convention 2014

Saturday the 14th of June was a special day. The day of the 3rd Mary Quant Daisy doll Convention!

We had started planning early, but al kind of little problems came on our way, so finally to get everything ready in time was still challenging.
I travelled to York on friday, together with Vicky, who also lives in the Netherlands. At Manchester airport we waited for our friend Helene who was flying in from Denmark. With the 3 of us we took the train to York.

Ingie working on a doll

The train was a bit late, so we were just in time to catch up with our other friends for dinner. They were already at the pub across the road, the Fox and Roman.
After dinner we went back to the hotel, where we checked out the room for the convention, and then went to the room that Helene & I shared, to get the convo doll styled, dressed up and boxed.
Vicky, Elaine and Ingie joined us to help get them all ready.

Helene, boxing the dolls


me, putting a doll on a backcard

Vicky took these pictures of us

Saturdaymorning, just after breakfast, we went to set up the convention room. Slowly but surely everyone started to drop in.
We had a display of other 9 inch dolls;

Jo brought her home, and we all brought our favourite accesories.:

Daisy's Home

patio furniture, variants

Helene's supermarket!

Show & tell, our start of the programme started already quite chatty, lots of fun and laughing, especially when I opened the convention saying I was happy to see some new faces and some old faces....LOL, blame it on me being Dutch. Of course I meant some familiar faces.....

After introducing ourselves, our favorite Daisy's and/or accessories it was time for some demo's.

Janet had a lovely informative talk about how she started crocheting dolls fashion, the right size needles and yarn for it, and she showed us some lovely vintage crochet patterns.

Elaine continued, with a very practical tutorial on how to sew trousers for Daisy, and she included a sew your own Daisy trousers kit for each attendee.

Daisy in crochet top by Janet and trousers by Elaine

Soon enough it was time for lunch.

Before we went back to our programme, I was happy to announce that next years Daisy Convention is to be held in Denmark, the first weekend of May!

Back to the programme, and first point after lunch was the OOAK outfit swap. I got a lovely outfit from Elaine, and my OOAK outfit went to Ralph.

Dress I got from Elaine with the OOAK outfit swap!

And then it was time for the most feared moment of the programme, Ralph's Daisy Quiz.

He had made up his own brilliant prize table for the Daisy Quiz, with a very cleverly made reproduction of the Beanbag furniture set, even with a box, as a first prize. Of course we all wanted that very special first prize, but when we had to correct the answers, I found out after 25 of 50 answers, Jonny had more correct answers than me, so I didn't have my hopes too high.
However, after correcting the last 25, somehow I had managed to beat him. Ralph and Jo double checked all the answers, so I was absolutely delighted to hear I came first place! What an absolute gorgeous price!

We had a round of the prize table and then of course, there were also the creative competitions, where voting needed to be done.

Day at the races outfit competition, Ralph won with the outfit in the middle

Daisy & Chocolate, I won with the outfit on Amy

As Michelle had to leave early, we decided to push the awards for the creative competitions forward in the programme, so she wouldn't be missing it.
First prize for 'Day at the Races' was won by Ralph, second prize by Ingie and third prize by Jonny.
First prize for 'Daisy & Chocolate' was won by me, second prize by Elaine and third prize by Janet.
But I would like to remark here, as I did at the convo, that all entries were wonderful, and that there's so much talent in this group, that in fact every entry could have been a winner.

And we had the single shoe swap, in which I managed to complete a pair of pink balletshoes and a pair of black sandals. Thank you so much, my swapsie partners.

Finally it was time for the official presentation of the convention doll and the photoshoot. Again, it was lovely to see how the doll came together with everyone of the convention doll team working so hard to make it all possible.

Thank you, Jonny, Ingie, Elaine, Vicky and Helene. Withouth all your hard work and creativity the convention doll wouldn't have been the way she is.A very special word of thanks to Mel from Retro Dolls UK, who donated the reroot hair for our convention dolls, and also a big thank you to my husband, for cutting, folding and assembling the boxes.

Only two points were left at the agenda; the goodie bags and the prize table.
Elaine was our goodie bag queen this year, which means she coordinated everything concerning the goodie bags. And she did a great job on it. Thank you, Elaine!

Helene took care of coordinating the prize table this year, so also a huge thank you to her!
And of course special thanks to everyone who donated either to goodie bags or prize table, especially if you weren't able to attend the convo.