Marigolds and Magpies

Quite surprisingly, I rate marigolds as one of my favourite flowers. Although the marigold has some rather negative connotations, developed in Victorian England, I like to concentrate on the happier, more positive meanings it has...

What do marigolds symbolize?

Commonly referred to as the 'herb of the sun', we associate the flowers' fiery yellow, orange, and red hues with the warmth, happiness, joy, optimism, and good luck. Yet, marigolds also symbolizes darker emotions such as jealousy, grief, despair, and mourning

(https://www.petalrepublic.com/marigold-flower-meaning/

In my recent exhibition "Enveloping , marigolds were featured a lot in my textile artworks, including a few of the "garden Threads" art dolls. I drew my inspiration from my own garden where marigolds have even found their way into my vegetable garden. The marigolds in the textile artworks above are appliqued and stitched.

I coupled these bright orange flowers with the highly contrasting magpies, created with fabric collage.

I have to admit that the magpies really became the star of the exhibition, and the marigolds did fade into the background.

One of the cheeky magpies even made celebrity status by being featured on the advertising material ( with the marigolds) ...

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Giveaway - Gifts for You on My Birthday

Giveaway Gifts T his week is blog giveaway time! Last week I celebrated my birthday. I’ve had far too many to count the candles, but I had a wonderful party on the weekend with my family - with an indulgent birthday cake, favourite foods cooked by my husband and great company. ( In case you were wondering about the writing on the cake , Por Por = Chinese grandmother) I also got great gifts from my family and friends. There seemed to be a bit of a theme this year – with many of my gifts and cards depicting matryshoka ( babushka) dolls and tea drinking. As it is also winter here in Australia , it was easy for me to decide what I could offer as gifts in this birthday giveaway. All the gifts are handmade by me. Gift 1 - two little fabric matryshoka dolls Gift 2- a little bag made from colourful teapot and teacup fabric . The design is called a jester bag, but it is suitable for carrying s...

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...

#the100dayproject : Inspiring Women Days 1 - 4

#The100DayProject is a *free* global art project that takes place online 🎨 E very year, thousands of people all around the world commit to 100 days of creating. Anyone can participate . The idea is simple: choose a creative project, do it every single day for 100 days, and document and share the process online. 2026 is my 8th year of participating. I have stitched daily observations, painted my egg cup collection, collaged postcards and envelopes, written poems, explored colour palettes .... this year I am researching, sketching and stitching 100 inspiring women. Fortunately I purchased a piece of beautiful linen, with preprinted outlines of 100 women ... just one issue - the figures are tiny (height 6cm /2.5 ins) My first week started tentatively ... I thought I would start with Empress Wu, after whom I named my creative activity. This is when I discovered how difficult it is to applique and stitch on these very small figures - I used tweezers to put pieces of fabric down, tried t...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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