Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Finally on Friday, my project "Seasons" for the Hello Dollies challenge was ready for presentation on Saturday... as usual, last minute touches were needed. I decided on a "flat doll" project, for this challenge which was to "create your own fabric" to make a doll from a basic pattern provided. I thought the stump doll pattern lent itself easily to the flat doll idea. I had been working on the idea for a long time, making all sorts of different fabric, most of which was rejected and has since found other uses. I finally settled on four bits of  machine embellished  and embroidered fabric to complement a piece of space dyed commercial fabric on which I had stamped face images.  Trying not to use anything other than what was in my stash, I chose a neutral coloured fabric for the background and gave it a bit of depth by going over the surface with a black fabric pastel with a textured mat  underneath. My original idea was to have these dolls appearing to

The Brisbane Textile Festival was not advertised as a heavenly event but an angel was there admiring the creative work! This golden vision was a real person of course, perhaps just stunned by the amazing work.  The main exhibition was Circus Berserkus,wearable art ... there was a festival of colour ... just a few of the works I photographed.  The third photo is a close up of the "Tightrope Walker" by Kirry Toose, the winner. One of the exhibitions which captured my attention was the sewing machine "tattoos" or art skins ... textile art transferred to sewing machines... one way to personalise your machine! I was happy when I heard the winners of the best "dressed" stalls. They were amongst my favourites, too . 2 World Textiles and Tours was the best small stall and Dairing was the best large stall  I fitted in a couple of workshops and was happy to have some time on a 12 needle embellisher machine. I made a wall hanging using only synthetic fabrics

Winter temperatures have dropped dramatically in this part of the world in the last week , and my work room is cold… so most nights I have been watching some TV in the warmth of our family room. So, what projects can I do while watching shows like Master Chef each night? I decided to devote TV time to temari. Temari  are thread wrapped decoratively stitched balls - a Japanese folk craft originally made in ancient times to amuse children. I think most temari designers these days like to think of them as small works of  stitiched art. I was a raw beginner about six weeks ago when my mother got me started. I also bought a book which begins “How can anything that looks so intricate be so simple?” (from Japanese Temari, A Colorful Spin on an Ancient Craft by Barbara B. Suess). I must admit I was sceptical about the “simple” bit, but was surprised at the results from  familiar embroidery stitches. While I  haven’t attempted a complex division of the balls yet, and do not claim that I am at

To herald the beginning of Winter, the weather has been cold, rainy and stormy this week, so like most people who live in Newcastle ( NSW, Australia), I have been thinking of that memorable June weekend in 2007, now known as the Pasha Bulker weekend when this huge ship ran aground on the beach during a winter storm ... but I have bigger challenges related to Seasons to contend with. My doll makers' group, Hello Dollies, has a challenge to create a cloth doll, using the theme " Seasons" as inspiration and with only one rule that the fabric used must be of our own creation. As usual, I have left it to the last few weeks and although I have been thinking about the project for months, it is only in the last week or so that I have been propelled into action. I chose the stump doll pattern from the choice of two patterns provided. Idea No.1 was to paint fabric and then machine embroider it and use it as the body for the doll and I was going to use the tree template to create t