Unseasonal Spring Flowers

Unseasonal Spring Flowers #1 - tea stains and stitching : Wilma Simmons

I am sure this is not what Tag Tuesday followers will be expecting for the theme of Spring Flowers.
My tags this week aren't the popular beautiful interpretations of favourite Spring garden flowers - they are monochrome tea stained canvas tags, with hand stitching. I think it is amazing when you put wet tea bags onto canvas, the shapes of the tea stains are so like flowers and when the tea stain from the string makes a line, it looks just like a stem.

Unseasonal Spring Flowers #2 - tea stains and stitching : Wilma Simmons

While those in the northern hemisphere are really looking forward to Spring and a burst of floral colour, we in the southern hemisphere are experiencing the end of summer and depending on where you live, perhaps a little Autumn breeze and a slight drop in temperature. So, my tags represent Spring flowers- out of season.

Unseasonal Spring Flowers #1 and #2 - tea stains and stitching : Wilma Simmons

Here also is an image of another subdued interpretation of Spring flowers. This embroidered card was made by a friend, but I just love the simple and calm beauty it portrays.

Embroidered card by Margaret Adams, Newcastle NSW Australia

Hope you will have a look at the fantastic art tags created over at Tag Tuesday - all interpretations of Wendy's theme, Spring Flowers.

A November project

A few years ago, I began scheduling into my day, the routine of a daily art practice.... seven years later, I still love #the100dayproject and am a strong advocate of "create something, anything, every day" . In more recent years, I haven't been content with a mere 100 days and have often pursued shorter /or longer projects requiring some daily attention. For example, I completed 145 days of slow stitching my garden and then another 60 day random cross stitch garden.... but that's a digression.... This month, I am being far more practical... I still like to send and give Christmas cards, but am always getting them in the post very late, and trying to make some special unique cards for the family the night before.... so all this month, I am making Christmas cards - just one a day. By 30 November, I should have some to choose from for posting within Australia and for giving in December. Here are my first 4 days .... If you're wondering why bother ...

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...

How does your garden grow with stitch?

"How does your garden grow with stitch?" is an update on a post I published way back in 2015, when I stitched my first "impressionist garden" for a course I was studying at the Embroiderers' Guild. Gardens are my constant inspiration for my artwork, and I create gardens in cloth and stitch repetitively, using many different techniques. I am particularly fond of this heavily stitched embroidered "impressionist" garden. In 2016, I stitched two small gardens in this style for an exhibition and they included photos of my husband's grandmother and her brother and sister as children. Although the collector who bought these two works did not know our family, the children reminded him of his own family from England of about the same era. These two 'gardens' have become my "stitch" reference and images which best showcase the technique although I don't have the originals any more. Since then, quite a few other gardens have gro...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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