Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

 Card #11 features an Australian Christmas Stamp issued in 1969 - with  the contemporary colours of green and  magenta echoed in  stitched flowers and vegetation.  In 1969, besides this stamp with an image of Mother and Child in a stained glass window, a more abstract design was also issued with references to the Tree of Life.  And if you missed the first 9, here they are. 

#100gradenthreads / 9  Continuing the exploration of grevillea leaves ....  Materials : cotton and polyester fabric, Cottage Garden hand dyed thread, khadi paper disperse dyes  Techniques : disperse/transfer dyeing, hand stitching.   

For all of us, being close to home is not an option currently. There are many positive ways to think of being close to home -  one, of course, is to find inspiration and make art . Recently, probably in the last few years, the sights and sounds in my neighbourhood have provided me with enough material for a lifetime of art making.... and I don't live in a magical place, just a simple ordinary  residential suburb in a regional city in NSW,  near some dedicated bushland, walking tracks, a village shopping centre and a hospital.  On daily walks in the neighbourhood, I have picked up sticks from the ground to make hundreds of "stick" dolls,  fallen leaves to dye and print cloth and paper, flowers and other plant bits  for  various artworks.  I am very grateful to have so much to work from so close to home and as I complete my second #the100day project - 100 small wearable art pins, I have tried to find a new way each day of express...

When I heard the theme for Tag Tuesday this fortnight is "Haberdashery", I rummaged in my sewing drawer to look for "vintage" items of haberdashery which I knew I had in my stash. I was particularly happy and surprised to find a number of cards of press studs, buttons and hooks and eyes. These brought back such great memories of the haberdashery shops which I used to frequent years ago when we lived in small country towns. They seemed to stock whatever you needed. You can tell the age of some of these items in my "habbie" stash as Australia changed to decimal currency on 14 February 1966, and the button card quotes a price of 1/3d...  As I have been making little wearable pins for #the100dayproject, accompanied by a haiku, I thought that Day 30 had to be about haberdashery ... hence my tag within a tag for Tag Tuesday....  "Just a word recalls Sewing notions long since used:  Haberdashery"  This is a cloth /mixed media collage with...

  As fascinating as the subject of "black holes" is, it was never my intention to create this piece true to its astronomical details so I have called this art work 'Black Holes'- an abstraction of the phenomena of a stellar collapse.  ( A  stellar black hole  (or  stellar-mass black hole ) is a  black hole  formed by the  gravitational collapse  of a  sta r .  . from Wikipedia)   This art work started with mark making on various pieces of paper with ink, paint, and stitch.   I collaged those bits of paper together and then digitally transferred the drawing on to silk and free machine stitched the silk collage using dissolvable fabric and overlays of tulle, lace and sequinned fabric.  Some hand stitching was also done to add a bit more texture of the piece as well as trapunto quilting in some parts.  I always had the dilemma of whether to hang this piece vertically or hori...

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers in my world and to all those who fulfil of the role of mother.... blessed are you who love unconditionally, protect and nurture the young and vulnerable. Enjoy and celebrate today...   Image : "Masked Owl Protector" - art doll: Wilma Simmons 

If you sent me a letter (or a bill) by post recently, then one of these envelopes could be yours.... for #The100DayProject, I started on 2 April to create a collage on a used envelope each day. The theme for the collage is inspired by a daily walk , so the project is a double challenge for me - to take a walk and to create a small piece of art every day until 10 July. Here are the results of Days 13-20...

This year, I decided to participate in The 100 Day Project - I signed up before my life suddenly got a bit busy, but I am determined to continue with it. It is an online art project which attracts thousands of people worldwide every year to create art of some sort every day for 100 days. This started on 2 April  so it's early days... Each participant can decide what he/she would like to create. I had a pile of used envelopes which I saved for an unknown project, so thought this was the perfect opportunity to use them and all the little bits of torn paper, fabric scraps and ephemera I have been keeping. My 100 day project is to create collages on used envelopes.  Did you send me a letter? You may find your envelope as one of the 100 collages. These stitched collages will be inspired by my daily walks in my neighbourhood, so it is also a 100 day challenge to walk each day, even if it only for 15-20 minutes.   Here are the first five days...  ...

 Bird's Nest - fabric art tag : Wilma Simmons  Today is 1 April - just the day for carrying on with the creative  silliness I started last fortnight for Tag Tuesday .  The coordinator of Tag Tuesday, Valerie nominated the theme "Birds, Nests and Eggs". Using a fabric print from  Loralie Designs and a fabric print of a magpie from  "Taking Flight" by Kennard & Kennard, I appliqued and stitched this fabric tag to suit the theme.   I have used this idea before some years ago for an art doll ...a bird making a nest from "hair" from a woman's head. I think it is interesting how ideas remain with you for some time, and this one still come to the surface every now and then.  "Unravelling" - wrapped art doll : Wilma Simmons  I am really  having fun working with the prints of colourful "Loralie" women and now have a small series of appliqued art tags.  Mushroom #2 - fabric art tag : Wilma Simmons  Mu...