We’re in the middle of a fierce, Autumn storm on top of our little hill here. It got me thinking about my ‘Autumn’ Matryoshka Russian dolls. She was inspired by purple thunder clouds, fallen leaves, wet bamboo and watery golden sunlight. Here’s a bit about how I created her.

My Autumn Matryoshka focuses on four vintage kimono fabrics. Each of these pieces of fabric came into my collection as one-off scraps, no bigger than a postcard. Sometimes I try to image what the original kimonos might have looked like. I wonder what other details were contained in the full fabric designs. Aren’t they beautiful?

The faces for my matryoshkas were created using a combination of hand drawing and Photoshop. I think of the ‘Autumn’ face as being Japanese, with her deep brown eyes, warm skin tone, soft cherry lips, and salmon cheeks.

For the print on the back, I selected four colours and two little swatches from the kimono fabrics and combined them into a diamond print with my logo across the lower centre.

I’ve made her (and her ‘Summer’ and ‘Winter’ friends) into cushions, keyrings, postcards, magnets and bead strand kits. You can see them all in my Etsy shop. You can also see more photos of my Matryoshka’s here, in my flickr photos. Enjoy!