Matryoshka doll charts

I almost put "Russian Ladies" as the title of this post, just to improve my traffic a wee bit. ;) But then I figured I probably don't want the type of visitors that would give me. The post will be about Russian ladies, but probably not in the context anyone who googled the phrase would be hoping for.

Waaay back in 2007 I mentioned that I was incorporating matryoshka dolls in my crafts for a swap. I had done some cute cross stitch and said I would post charts. Well, 4½ years later, here they are: my set of matryoshka cross stitch charts!





They could be used for cross-stitch, any other needlepoint project, knitting or just about any other craft technique as well. Just imagine having quirky kitschy matryoshka mozaic over the kitchen sink...

Feel free to borrow and modify as you please. But please give me credit and link to my original version, if you decide to use my charts.

Swaps Galore

(For my Matrioshka Doll Swap partner koi, if you by any chance read this and haven't recieved your package yet, it will spoil the surprise!)

Here are the photos of the swap items I've been making that I promised to post.

First some wallets for the Sweat Shop Swap:

I made a bunch to try some different ideas. I'm going to make more of the orange one, the one with green chairs and the retro flower print one and put up for sale on my etsy.
I chose five of them to use for the swap:




And now over to the Matrioshka Doll Swap! I decided to make a stenciled t-shirt, which was on my partners wishlist, and some other useful trinkets.

T-shirt sizes can be trucky when you don't have the right measurements. I had a men's size small baggy white t-shirt to start with and needed to transform it to a size small womens t-shirt... I looked up clothing patterns for measurements, and did my best, hopefully it fits. At least I'm certain it won't be to small! Then I got to the fun part stenciling! I made the stencils from adhesive plastic. The black lines are done with a fabric marker.

I loved the result and I'll have to make one of these for myself. It was really sad to part with it! Hopefully koi will like it as much as I do!

The notecards below are made from magazines that I surprisingly, but also very conveniently, found in one of Chris's stock magazines a week after starting the swap.


I also wanted to use one of the cross-stitch diagrams I designed, so I made a cross stitch keyring to go with the rest.