Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

My mother is celebrating her 90th birthday next weekend, and I was given the job of creating something as a party favour for guests coming to the event. We agreed on some criteria - a small item, not too expensive, not chocolates or lollies, preferably handmade, and something reflecting my mother's heritage and her birthday. I thought of  fans with a photo, a small clay plaque, small boxes with customised ribbon, chopsticks... then I saw felt fortune cookies on Pinterest!. Tick all the boxes and  thank you, Martha Stewart   for a step by step description. photo from http://www.marthastewart.com/273591/felt-fortune-cookies I used Martha Stewart's instructions to guide me.... 1. Cut felt circles - the ones I cut are 10cm diameter.  2. Cut pieces of wire and ribbon to fit inside the circles.  3. Clean up, but dilemma - will I keep the scraps of felt for another future project?  4. Embroider....  5. Count ...  6. Glue the wire covered with ribb

Border pattern   ( February 2015 - Wilma Simmons)  Was this on my bucket list ?  No,  not really, but after completing Stages 1 & 2 of the Creative Embroidery Correspondence Course with the Embroiderers' Guild about twenty+ years ago, this year I decided to enrol in Stage 3 - finally.  As I want to record what I do, I am sharing each month's exercises with you right here. If you are unfamiliar with these courses, what you get each month is an envelope with instructions, handwritten comments by your assessor and some threads and fabric and then the completed work is returned to the Guild each month for assessment. February's threads and fabric  For February's lesson, the theme was inspired by border patterns, emphasising the way stitches turn into patterns when used close together to fill shapes and spaces. Besides the embroidery, there were drawings to do - three border patterns and three square patterns like tiles. I love doing this part, but then to cho

" Some people make a difference, some people make you different" - Saleem Sharma make a difference to  have  an  effect   It is  exciting  to do  something   that   really   makes  a  difference  in  your   community.   People   don't   realize   that   their   vote  can   make  a  difference. Usage   notes:   often   used  in  the   form   make  no  difference :  It  makes  no  difference  to me if  the   game  is  televised  or  not. See   also:   difference ,  make Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms  Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2003. Reproduced with permission. from http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/make+a+difference Can someone else really make you different? Or is it that some people  can empower another to be different?  I'd be interested to hear if someone has made you different? Or ,at least, empowered you to be different? 

Adeline featured in Aspiring Designers Challenge  Pearl Red Moon is an amazing designer and artist with her own  label," Boho Banjo" .... and again Pearl let me test her new pattern, "Adeline". Previously I tested "Zelda " - you can read about that first experience of testing Peal's patterns here.  But, let me tell you about Adeline .... this is one of the easiest patterns I've made and it's stylish , versatile  and most of all  comfortable. The pattern comes in multiple sizes and two lengths. I made the small pattern ( suitable for sizes 8-12 Australian) and the shorter length. Even though I am definitely on the larger end of the small scale and very short , I was very happy with the fit and the length. Adeline pattern available from Kollabora The pattern comes as a downloadable PDF file. While you can get this printed off locally at your favourite print/photocopy shop in large sheets - 2 A0, I opted for printing off  the A4 sheets

I celebrated International Women's Day on Sunday, 8 March by  participating in a very happy and colourful textile art installation - a 72 square metre fabric tile mosaic  which was the culmination of many months of innovative  planning and creative workshops at Timeless Textiles Gallery , 90 Hunter Street, Newcastle East (NSW, Australia) ....  You can read more about the project in   my previous blog post . "Letting Go" was such fun with hundreds of women, led by community leaders, textile artist coordinators and  a well known Aboriginal artist and elder, scattering the fabric tiles to the wind. The mosaic followed Elsie Randall 's  Aboriginal design of four large butterflies, and while it took many hours to prepare on the footpath outside The Lock Up Cultural Centre , it was exhilarating to see the fabric tiles scattered with  happy abandon by one and all. People came from far and wide to participate, and it was great to see vi

Some of the fabric tiles with the small drawing of Elsie Randall's design for the entire mosaic.  Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery will mark International Women’s Day on 8  March with an innovative and collaborative exhibition – Letting Go – which will include the placement of a large-scale art installation outside the Lock-up Gallery and Curve Gallery, Hunter Street , Newcastle East.  The installation, a 72-square metre fabric mosaic designed by local Aboriginal elder and artist Elsie Randal, will be placed on the footpath outside the historical gaol to symbolise the need for Australians, and people from other nations, to cleanse and heal historical pain. The Letting Go installation is inspired by a community ritual held in a small Italian village each year, where townsfolk colour bark chips and scatter them in the square. A respected community elder  then leads a walk through the chips, scattering them as a symbol of cleansing and letting go of old enmities. Over

eco print - marigold, grevillea leaf on khadi paper  Today is the first day of Autumn in the southern hemisphere  Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness  Close bosom friend of the maturing sun....   And still more, Later flowers for the bees,  Until they think the warm days will never cease...  Where are the songs of Spring ? Yellow in all the earth and in the skies  The world would seem  Faint as a widow mourning with soft eyes  And falling into dream . ...  The woods are lovely, dark and deep  But I have  promises to keep And miles to go   Before I sleep .....   Words by John Keats, John Shaw Neilson, Robert Frost Images by me -  (Wilma Simmons, Empress Wu Designs) from my handmade book, Where are the songs of Spring? gum leaf captured between tea bag paper , dipped in beeswax  eco dyed wool with handstitching  tea bag and hand stitching  eco dyed wool, felted and hand stitched with wood button  eco print  leaves on watercolour paper