Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

In my doll makers group , Gumnut Dollies Newcastle, this year our theme is "The Twenties".  So, on the weekend, I consciously had images of the 1920's firmly in my mind when I did a sculpting class with West Australian artist, Linda Misa.  Not really looking like anything 1920's until the paint goes on.... the next day.  And below are a few of our tutor's beautiful sculptures .... so much personality. 

One of the things I like to do when I have a bit of spare time is play with photos I've taken ... today, when I didn't have spare time, I played nevertheless .  Having printed out black and white copies, I very quickly and roughly applied watercolours to the prints, and further cropped to make some interesting Facebook cover images. 

I am really hoping that a bird in a nest and a set of wings with a butterfly might be considered signs of "spring". At Tag Tuesday , the theme is "Spring is in the Air" so I am hoping that these two free motion stitched tags might be acceptable.  The stitching is done on my Bernina 550 machine - straight stitching, free motion - with the feed dogs lowered and a "darning" foot. I usually don't  draw first, but with both of these I did make pencil marks to delineate the positions of the person and the bird in the nest and the placement of the wings( below)  These two are also in the series of 29 for #29 Faces online challenge to create a face every day in the month of February. 

As most of my blog readers know, I am completing the #29 Faces Challenge - this challenge is to create a face a day for the month of February - any art medium.  I chose to stitch faces, using free motion machine stitching - basically it means sketching with a sewing machine by moving the material around while the machine stitches. ( different from the computerised machine embroidery where a design is pre-determined and completed automatically)  This week I have been monitoring the speed  I use my sewing machine as my sketching tool  during the creation of the stitched faces, experimenting and using different ratios of speed - hand:foot - some of the results have been good and others not so fantastic.... my aim is to get better control, so it seems to be a matter of coordination,  too - a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.  I referred to another stitching blog ...  Expert advice from Tigle...

Dotee by Wendy Anderson  What is a "dotee' doll? ...  A dotee is a mini art doll, meant to be traded or swapped. The dolls 6 inches /15 cm tall or smaller, but the hanger or tail can exceed that measurement. They have a face, but do not require arms or legs. Dotees have a loop for hanging, and come with tails (tails are fibres, ribbon, charms or other string-y things that add to the theme of the doll). Dotees can be made from a variety of materials - fabric, felt, paperclay, yarn, beads, gourds or any other material/media that you can make a doll from. Most dotee makers add buttons, beads, sequins, embroidery, or charms to embellish the doll. Dotee dolls by Wilma Simmons At the February meeting of Gumnut Dollies Newcastle, the group activity was to revisit these little dolls, which were very popular for doll swaps around the world about 10 years ago. As our theme for 2020 is The Twenties, the little flapper girl face buttons were a good start....  Dot...

Continuing with my #29 faces series of stitched faces. Day 5 "owl"  was stitched using my Bernina B550  and the others  were stitched with my really old Bernina Nova ( probably manufactured in 1980s or earlier) I am still not sure which I prefer using.... the old machine works really well for free motion stitching because I can change the settings so much more easily as there are no electronics involved. During this month, I will use both - can you tell the difference from looking at the results? 

Black , White and Red - a favourite colour combination! Tag Tuesday has this as its current theme.  Here is my tag .... a stitched face. I use my sewing machine as my drawing implement.... a technique called free motion stitching or free hand machine embroidery. Of course, nothing is symmetrical or perfect but this is quite easy to do. Just lower or cover the feed dogs on your sewing machine, and move the fabric around manually while stitching and so the sewing machine "draws" a line, free hand.  In the photo, the black line is the stitched line - what I try to do is an unbroken line, so often I go over and over the same line to get to the next  section of stitching. When I have finished stitching, I cut around the stitching and attach the face to a prepared painted tag with heat applique. Then, I use Inktense pencils to colour  features and/or shade the face.  In "Spots" I have also appliqued the clothing and the head wear.  'Spots" is the first in ...