Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

What a week - four days of workshops and a witch doll project dinner with Gumnutters Doll Group! I spent a whole day dyeing every bit of cotton and velvet fabric in sight, preparing a great stash for future projects. All of this fabric has been dyed with procion dyes. This was a wonderful day with textile artist, Roberta Hodgson. My class with the Sydney high school students was great fun, too. We did some wet felting, but it seemed to prove that glittery butterflies and love hearts are favourites amongst fifteen year old girls, whatever their background, circumstances and aspirations. The weekend was a Gumnutters' birthday celebration with the "unveliing" of the witches travelling doll project on Friday. . There were two groups of four and the project was "a body in a bag" , with each person working on the other three group members' dolls  with a theme of witches and wizards , but no wizards appeared. My multi-coloured organge/purple and green body re...

How lucky am I ? This is the beautiful doll I received in the Gumnutters Doll Group Cup Challenge. It was made by Marg from a small collection of fabrics, lace and an embroidered piece I provided. The Cup Challenge is fun - a "doll challenge" which began at the Gumnutters Christmas in July meeting and finished on Saturday at the December meeting. Each participant provided some fabric and it is rolled inside a cup/coffe mug and the parcels are swapped. The cup is a gift, but each person then makes a doll or something else (if requested) using the fabrics provided. Most unlike me, I chose "pink" and gathered together pink/maroon coordinating fabrics from my stash. Thanks Marg, your interpretation of the bits and pieces I gave you is absolutely beautiful. There were of course many other fantastic dolls unveiled, including a very richly dressed Santa,  cheeky Christmas elves, and starry angels, and brightly costumed elegant girls. Congratulations to all who partici...

A round of parties this week ... Yesterday, it was the Gumnutters' Christmas party. ( The Gumnutters are a doll makers' group here in Newcastle. We meet once a month and swap creative ideas and teach each other new skills) The Gumnutters have been wonderful this year supporting the Mando project in Papua New Guinea - thanks very much, you are a special group of creative women. Besides eating lots of yummy food yesterday, we had a Christmas stocking swap and we were all delighted to receive such beautiful stockings. We also made beaded Christmas wreaths - everyone getting into the spirit of Christmas. These little wreaths are very simply made with a few green and red crystals and wire. For this project, acrylic beads look sparkly, too and make a lovely embellishment for a parcel or for the tree. The instructions for this little project are in the Australian magazine , "Beads Etc" issue 8, 2006. Last night, Jim and I travelled to Sydney to a 120th birthday - our friend...