Seasons Challenge

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 the four seasons of an apple tree - spring flowers, summer fruit, autumn leaves and winter branches. Idea No. 2 was to develop the idea of a series of dolls, somehow using the tree concept as well. It is still an idea but it all seems too difficult now with so little time left.

Idea No. 3 was to create fabric with my embellisher machine. Great idea - quick and easy! Using fabric previously made as a sample, I made different textured pieces of fabric in what I thought were seasonal colours. How wrong can a simple task turn out? Spring somehow looked far more like "water", Autumn and Summer were just too dark and somehow looked "tribal". So another distraction or procrastination? I was diverted from the main task, and this week, I felt compelled to use the fabric I made and rejected for the Seasons project into little wearable art pouches. I'm happy with these, but not with the prospect of making more "seasonal" fabric.

The project plan today ( is this Idea No. 4?) is to make four flat dolls each representing a season, using machine embellished and surface embroidered fabric. Each of the flat dolls will be displayed as if they are emerging from an archway or doorway. Arches/doors 1 and 2 and 2 and 3 will be connected by a flat fabric tree and hopefully, the whole project will be free standing depicting the transition of the seasons.

If you feel like making a comment, I would love to know what you think of this idea - will it work? any tips for construction? any better ideas? what colours do you think of for each season?

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...

Lilly Pilly

Today is Australia Day. I chose a photo of some Lilly Pilly berries as a celebratory image for this national day. Lilly Pilly is a common name for a plant, Syzygium smithii which grows mostly in Eastern Australia, from the northern rain forests of Queensland, throughout NSW to the southern Wilson's Promontory in Victoria. In New Zealand it is called "monkey apple, but other names used in Australia, besides lilly pilly, are Eungella Gum and Coast Satinash. The largest Lilly Pilly recorded was found in Dingo Creek Flora Reserve, near Tenterfield where I once lived. The tree now growing in my garden was once a small seedling which I was gifted when I left Woolgoolga, a small coastal town in northern NSW. Its name is said to come from the Aboriginal word 'weelgoolga' describing the lilly pilly which grows in profusion there. It is probably no surprise that the lilly pilly berries are edible as bush tucker, and make a beautiful jam or jelly. I have even seen re...

"Temari Or Not Temari?" Tutorial

Background Information: Temari (literally translated “hand ball”) is a Japanese folk craft that is alleged to have originated in China and was introduced to Japan five or six hundred years ago. Traditionally, the balls were constructed from wrapped kimono fabric remnants and silk threads. They were made by mothers and grandmothers for children to play with. Nowadays, decorative embroidered temari represent a highly valued and cherished gift symbolizing friendship and loyalty. Recently I've wondered if your don't use traditional techniques whether you should call what you create "temari". That is an ongoing debate but today I share what I do to make a "non-traditional temari".... 1.I start with a polystrene ball ( traditionally the balls were wound silk scraps or other organic materials) and begin to wrap with approx 4 ply wool, turning the ball as I wrap. 2. I then wrap another layer of wool in a similar fashion , this time a 3 or 2 ...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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