Tea Bags : Too Precious to Waste

stitched tea bags vessels - with battery operated tea light.

It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness....

stitched used tea bag vessels

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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...

Evolution of Message Stick Art Dolls

Message Stick Art Doll - stick, polymer clay, hand dyed & stencilled fabric with embroidery My message stick art dolls have evolved over the last couple of years. Why have I called these art dolls “Message Sticks” ? I wanted to recreate a doll which was based on traditional techniques, so I have used ideas from a few different cultures. Many traditional dolls were made from wood - often wrapped with fibres. In Egypt, several types of paddle dolls have been discovered in tombs in Egypt. The dolls are made of wood, flat, and constructed in a shape has led the form to be called a 'paddle doll'. The dolls seemingly follow a convention for the female figure, emphasizing the hips and hair. The wooden figures are usually painted with a geometric pattern of lines and dots. These patterns may reproduce tattos or ritual scaring in female Egyptian culture of the period or represent clothing or jewellery. A fine exampl...

Ethereal Threads : Textile Art

Meredith Woolnough is a beautiful talented young artist. Her current work is exquisite, stunning, engaging and awe inspiring. As you can see from the images, Meredith reproduces the beauty of nature in stitch – literally thousands of metres of embroidery thread stitched onto a background which is later dissolved. What remains is like a delicate “skeleton", but somehow with depth of colour, movement and strength. I think what is conveyed in Meredith’s work is overwhelmingly the love and reverence for her natural subject matter and her intimate knowledge of its structure. Meredith’s latest exhibition is called “Ethereal Threads”, superbly presented at Timeless Textiles. It is a collection of framed fine art which demonstrates Meredith’s attention to the details of presentation – each of the large pieces is pinned to archer paper and the play of shadow on the paper enhances the beauty of each. There are finely detailed delic...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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