Bilums, buttons and broken bones

Why bilums, buttons and broken bones? They were certainly contributors to a very hectic week for me last week. I finally got around to doing the washing from our trip to Papua New Guinea, and the biggest job of all was soaking the many bilums we received and washing and drying them . Bilums are beautiful traditional PNG needle woven /string looped bags used for carrying all sorts of things from babies to kau kau ( sweet potatoes). Thank goodness for modern products like Napisan - it makes the job easier, but not less time consuming. But the result is worth it - I love these bilums.

Next, the buttons.... Earlier in the year, I had agreed to running a felted accessories workshop at my friend's studio LamboArt on 27 June. I thought ... no problem ... a week between getting home from PNG and the workshop ... plenty of time to get organised. All the felt project samples were made well in advance, but one of the workshop projects is what I call a felt button brooch - a beautiful but simple flat piece of handmade felt with a feature button. These buttons were going to be Australian timber buttons handmade by my husband, Jim who was to make them last week. You probably realise by now he has the broken bones, and was in hospital all of last week recovering from surgery following his accident in PNG! So I spent a couple of days ( in between hospital visits) searching op shops, antique shops, haberdasheries and going through my own stash for interesting and special buttons for the workshop participants to incorporate into their work. I did find some special metal and plastic ( not as good as timber) buttons which looked okay. Anyway, we had a great day on Saturday, and all seemed pleased with their results. Wow - check out those beautiful merino scarves made by Julie and Karen!

I must admit I was very happy to have Jim in hospital back here in Newcastle during the last week - in the seemingly absolute luxury of Warners Bay Hospital, operated on by a wonderful surgeon and in the care of fantastic health professionals. I certainly didn't mind visiting him in such a reassuring environment - it was such a relief to know Jim was in such good care. Here he is looking longingly at one of the floral arrangements from a friend - it included a bottle of Crown Lager!

Not that we had any complaints about the care in Papua New Guinea. The photos tell the contrasting story of lack of resources, there was still genuine care and commitment - village women wrapping Jim's leg in aloevera leaves, being "plastered" over a bathtub in Goroka Hospital, and the very heavy, rather clumsy plaster.

While it may have been a hectic and somewhat worrying week, it was a happy week with wonderful outcomes - beautiful bilums,( with wondeful memories of PNG), a successful felt workshop and mended bones!

A November project

A few years ago, I began scheduling into my day, the routine of a daily art practice.... seven years later, I still love #the100dayproject and am a strong advocate of "create something, anything, every day" . In more recent years, I haven't been content with a mere 100 days and have often pursued shorter /or longer projects requiring some daily attention. For example, I completed 145 days of slow stitching my garden and then another 60 day random cross stitch garden.... but that's a digression.... This month, I am being far more practical... I still like to send and give Christmas cards, but am always getting them in the post very late, and trying to make some special unique cards for the family the night before.... so all this month, I am making Christmas cards - just one a day. By 30 November, I should have some to choose from for posting within Australia and for giving in December. Here are my first 4 days .... If you're wondering why bother ...

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks .... The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or my husband or from off cuts gifted to us from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks. Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

How does your garden grow with stitch?

"How does your garden grow with stitch?" is an update on a post I published way back in 2015, when I stitched my first "impressionist garden" for a course I was studying at the Embroiderers' Guild. Gardens are my constant inspiration for my artwork, and I create gardens in cloth and stitch repetitively, using many different techniques. I am particularly fond of this heavily stitched embroidered "impressionist" garden. In 2016, I stitched two small gardens in this style for an exhibition and they included photos of my husband's grandmother and her brother and sister as children. Although the collector who bought these two works did not know our family, the children reminded him of his own family from England of about the same era. These two 'gardens' have become my "stitch" reference and images which best showcase the technique although I don't have the originals any more. Since then, quite a few other gardens have gro...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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