West Ryde Group

For this year's Morpeth Tea Cosy Challenge we made a display of Russian dolls.

Members had fun planning and making their variations of Russian Dolls. Babushka Dolls were associated with the healthy, plump image of a peasant woman and a large family. The colourful earth mother dolls have long been a part of our childhoods with their ever shrinking figurines fitting neatly inside one another to tell the story of a mother and her family. Babushka Dolls or nesting dolls began life around 1890 in Sergiev Posad, a busy little village near the famous Trinity Monastery St Sergei about 73 km outside Moscow. Sergiev Posad became famous for its wooden toys in particular its Babushka Dolls. The dolls in decreasing order of size are by Nerida O’Donnel, Eleanor Goldfinch, Kerry Edwards, Yvonne Fazzolari and Kate Semler. Yvonne’s doll also portrays the Amish Doll in that it has no face. The Amish believe that God creates faces.

An entry called "Double Yolker" submitted by Kerry Edwards won the animal section. The photo below shows the winning entry.  The tea cosy to the right is "Three Chicks in a Nest" and was also made by Kerry Edwards.