Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

#100gardenthreads /10  The last page of folding book 2  -  Noisy Miners ( as opposed to Indian Mynas ) are native birds whih flock in our garden and feed  on the nectar of the grevillea.  Materials : fabric and thread  Techniques : fabric collage  and hand stitching.   

I have missed Tag Tuesday ...  When the theme chosen by Sandie was "Wings" , I thought I could add to one of my series as well as practise my machine stitching skills for #The 100 Day Project which seems to be monopolising my time currently. For my "wings" tags, I created two on the theme of butterflies. Both are free motion stitched on my trusty Bernina sewing machine . I then applied "heat and bond", a double sided fabric adhesive and cut around the stitched "portraits". The cut outs were then applied to prepared tags made from cardboard,  covered with  book text and painted with white gesso. The red cheeks are coloured with Inktense pencil.  Here are the first two in the Red Cheeks series ... and they fit the "wings" theme too. 

In my most recent series of works, Garden Stories, I drew inspiration from a workshop I did  in 2017 with British textile artist Anne Kelly. These  new works are a series of folded stitched books in response to the exhibition challenge by NCEATA ( Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists). We were challenged to print from wood blocks created by a local artist, Bob Seal. The blocks were stylised natural elements - a bird, a fish and a flower. When I saw the flower block, I immediately thought of a sunflower, so the plan was born... I have also recently become a fan of reverse applique so I knew I wanted to incorporate that as well as develop the layering and stitching approach we took in Anne Kelly's workshop. I used only one of the blocks  - the flower for this set of books, but added one other feature on each - bees, birds, or butterflies. The background is an old , recycled cotton table cloth  with a stamped, unworked embrodiery pattern)...

'Bird" - stitched collage postcard  'Nest" - stitched collage postcard The current theme for Tag Tuesday is "Birds and Nests - apologies to all the devoted Tuesday taggers, these probably don't meet the criteria. It is hard to disguise these are tags when they are clearly postcards. Being a little short on time this fortnight, I thought I would use something I made in a workshop I attended last weekend  . The workshop was led by UK based artist/author, Anne Kelly, who specialises is stitched collage using the natural environment as a source of inspiration. Both "Bird" and "Nest" were created from a  combination of fabric and paper - images from paper serviettes, text from abandoned books printed fabric, scraps of lace and braid - layered with printed organza on top. Then I added both machine and hand stitching to enhance the design. My first attempt at writing with my sewing machine was so rewarding and surprisingly less difficult...

Art Dolls /Stick Dolls : copyright Wilma Simmons  I confess to being a fan of Angry Birds and challenging myself to a game of Angry Birds Ham'O'Ween will be about as far as I will go to celebrating Halloween here in Australia. However it did start me thinking about how birds became associated with this celebration with its Celtic origins. I can understand spiders, bats and even black cats  and wolves associated with spookiness, but birds? Halloween Art Tag :  copyright Wilma Simmons  It appears that the black raven has long been considered rather ominous, in spite of  a harmonious history of sharing the environment with human beings. Associated with wizards and witches,  the raven supposedly inherited some secret powers " to carry magic across long distances  and collect secrets to bring back .. . " (from natureworldnews.com)   Add this information to its throaty  territorial "kraa" call and scavenger habits, it is no wonder that th...

You're invited to: 'Flying Free' Newcastle’s Timeless Textiles Gallery will continue a five-year tradition of holding community-based art events to celebrate International Women’s Day, with the culmination of its Flying Free project featuring a huge flock of hand-made fabric birds that will ‘fly free’ outside the gallery in March this year. Timeless Textiles has collaborated with local artist, Wilma Simmons, to create the IWD art events, with local artists offering free community fibre art workshops, using techniques such as embellishing, screen printing, painting, stitching and dyeing. As well as the chance to learn new skills, the workshops allow people to brush up on their techniques and, of course, to enjoy themselves. The focus for IWD has varied each year including stitching 100 metres of white ribbon for 14 hours (2014) and creating hope flags. Seb, one of young creative bird makers with Wilma SImmons For IWD last year approximately 2,000 fabri...

Free Wednesday workshops starting 20 May 2015  at  Timeless Textiles , 90 Hunter Street, Newcastle .  10.30am - 12.30pm.  Textile art birds - 2016 International Women's Day Project.  In March 2015, visiting British textile artist, Abigail Brown kindly designed this bird and gifted Timeless Textiles a bird pattern for International Women’s Day 2016. Every Wednesday in our free creative workshop program, we will be creating birds -using some of the 2000 fabric tiles (from the ‘Letting Go’ celebrations: 2015 International Women’s Day) The birds will fly free amongst the Norfolk pines outside the gallery, attached by white ribbon to celebrate next International Women’s Day (March 8 2016). All proceeds will be donated to women's and children's refuges in the local area.  The fabric and Abigail Brown’s template will be available for participants to use at each free workshop on Wednesdays. “Flying Free” kits may also be purchased for $20 if y...

Tag Theme : Birds ( nests, eggs)  Although  very busy, I have been determined to create a tag each week for the Tag Tuesday Blog Challenge    All the tags  on the blog are very artistic, with so many different techniques used to interpret the theme . The tag I made for the "Birds" theme last week  is a silk screen print,  sewn onto the cardboard tag template, with satin and gingham ribbons. I bought the print from a stall at the Hunter Art Bazaar last weekend.   The tag below for "Mad March" was created from painted handmade paper, and a moon from a  paper circle coloured with texta markers and dabbed with rubbing alcohol. Then I stamped a pattern and the words, and added a silhouette cur from black cardboard, with some sari silk ribbon.  Tag theme: Mad March ( hares, rabbits) 

I wonder if three is sufficient a number to call a series? In my Owl Sisters post, I said I was creating a series of ‘Birdstick Women”. Here are three completed in the last week – all inspired by Australian birds commonly found in the Eastern States – a grass owl, an Australian raven (crow), and a Rose Robin ( although here the nesting female is rather a plain looking bird!). And the fourth just didn’t want a bird as a companion - These art dolls are in preparation for my workshop at the Contemporary Craft Retreat in Canberra in October.  For more information about my workshops and many others led by talented artists from all over Australia, please check out the Contemporary Craft Retreat website