"Eggstraordinary" Eggs

These extraordinary Easter Eggs have so much to recommend them - handmade, non-fattening, safe for children, quick and cheap to produce, lots of leftover bits and pieces are used.

I have really enjoyed making these and I was so happy with the finished products. These eggs start with a plastic filler, with a bell inside to make them "rattle", and then they are covered with wool roving and wrapped with woollen yarn. The wrapped " egg" is then wet felted and surface embroidered for decoration.

Here are the raw materials

Little fillable plastic egg shapes from a bargain shop ( 8 for $2)
Little bells (leftover from Christmas projects ) This packet is one I bought today - not exactly what I used before but as they were 25 for $2 ....)
Scraps of wool roving ( leftover from other felting projects)
Scraps of woollen yarn.( leftover from knitting and crochet projects)
Lengths of embroidery thread , also leftover from other projects.

Follow the instructions from a previous tutorial in an earlier post ( scroll down to look for it dated March 1) : Felted Balls: Tutorial for Beginners.

The bonus for me is that these felted eggs look great in my egg cups . I have quite a few more to make for all my egg cups - I have hundreds in my collection.

If you celebrate Easter, you might not want to eliminate chocolate eggs, but perhaps reduce the number and replace some with felted ones!
PS Here's a Turkish egg proverb: Today's egg is better than tomorrow's hen.

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...

#SeptTextileLove Day 12

#SeptTextileLove #STL26Day12 ‘Friendship’ … This is a story of friendship based on the love of textiles and fibre art . Gallerist and artist, Anne Kempton and I have been friends for 15 years , meeting when we had both retired from ‘ top’ jobs in a government department and a high school respectively. Neither of us were the retiring types - Anne was establishing the first commercial textile art gallery in Australia and I was looking for a creative direction. We discovered we were both driven by a sense of social justice and community and shared similar artistic aspirations . Since then, we have co- curated exhibitions, collaborated on many projects. supported community art and women’s causes, and grown in our individual artistic expression - Anne includes more stitching in her work and she has had a more painterly influence on mine . Moreover, this friendship is multifaceted, deep and personal and one I value and treasure . Thank you, Anne.

#SeptTextileLove26- Day 2

#STL26Day2 ‘Hand or Machine’ … Why not both? Two small stitched works in my stitched garden series, (left - free motion machine stitch ; right- hand stitch). Which do you prefer ? #SeptTextileLove

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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