Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

 Background: Seam  are a contemporary textile collective based in Bath, England. We are emerging and established embroiderers, printers, knitters, weavers, dyers, fashion designers, eco-designers, makers, artists… …who want to make textiles that are irresistible, and find their way onto your body, into your house and onto your walls. We share a commitment to pushing the boundaries of our craft and making high quality objects realised in the hands and thoughts of the maker. We hope to make a sustainable living from textiles, work locally and bring textiles into contemporary focus This month, all textile artists are enouraged to share their love of textiles and respond to  30 different textile prompts for on  Instagram  during September. You can respond to as many of the prompts as you wish, this could be only a few or it may be all of them - with the hashtag #SeptTextileLove   Here is my first week of #SeptTextileLove  Days 1 & 2 - Introd...

 No progress on my exhibition pieces in the last few days, as I had another deadline to meet today. I am one of the artist contributors to a book which is being published at the end of the year. The "coffee table" book will have amazing artistic photos of beautiful meals created by a chef accompanied by images of textile/fibre art inspired by the relevant fruit or vegetable . As you can see, I was allocated 'mushrooms". I had all sorts of great ideas of art dolls with mushroom hats and I made a number of drawings and patterns.  However, when I made a sample mushroom cap to practise the "hats", I liked the little mushrooms.... so, in my workroom, just on the shelf above, I spotted a small gourd. Surely everyone has gourds on their shelves just waiting for  an opportunity to be used in an art project? This gourd became the base, on top of which I created a rocky earthy surface with air dry clay, with the addition of embedded pockets of handmade felt. The em...

Last week I said I was not ready for Christmas. This week I don't think I ever will be - not this year anyway.   While I have been distracted this week from Christmas preparations, it has been worth it. A  very talented textile artist friend Wendy Scott had the opening of her solo exhibition, Rainbow Journey, at Timeless Textiles Gallery on Thursday night. I really recommend that you take the time out to see this one - a magical visual journey of colour, excitement and pure joy.  The exhibition is open until 7 December at Timeless Textiles Gallery, 7 Beaumont Street, Islington  (Newcastle NSW) - just a 2 minute walk from Hamilton (NSW) Railway Station.  Congratulations, Wendy - it is an absolutely beautiful exhibition and a wonderful testimony to your artistic talent.  Wendy Scott and self portrait  We are very fortunate to have opportunities to exhibit and see great textile art here in Newcastle. The next textile art exhibition op...

 Happy Australia Day… to celebrate, I made a koala plushie. I bought a fabric panel of an owl and a koala at the Wallsend Community markets last month, so thought today was the right day to make this Aussie icon. Australia Day was a rather lazy day. . A morning walk and then we retreated quickly back inside to escape the heat. I put a small indoors thermometer outside to test it out – it gave up! Obviously over 40degrees! We only went outside because we had to. We celebrated Australia day tonight by cooking, taking and sharing a slow cooked lamb dinner with my friend and my sister-in-law, both patients in hospital. Much better we’re told than hospital food! Here's a special thought for Australia Day: "Close your eyes... and think of the land that gave you life and breath, and think of all the reasons you are glad to be there, with the people you know, with the people you love."  from The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith. This week has been a slow c...

Rotarians from Yea, Victoria clebrate the installation of a water tank at Mando village, PNG. It is said that the Mando spirit moves mountains. However, it takes a team of Rotary volunteers to complete a project job list. In the last threee years, we have provided free primary education by building new classrooms, reduced the infant mortality rate by encouraging mothers to have their babies in the hospital or medical centre by providing maother and baby packs, began the process of including students with special needs in the school, supplemented family incomes by teaching living schools and establishing pig and chicekn breeding projects at the school. Here is a video summary of what has been achieved our recent trip - MANDO 2010 VIDEO Thanks to our intrepid leader, Wendy Stein for the production of this clip to highlight the achievements Clean water on tap Village men help unload new tank  Teacher housing upgraded  Replacing the floor of the principal's house Interior d...

With the weather becoming a bit colder, I decided to finish a scarf I started last year. I loved this pattern when I saw it in a Patons book, and a few of us at one of my dollmaking groups decided to make it - so you will probably see various versions of this around Newcastle this winter.     I enjoyed knitting the flowers and the leaves, but I did not enjoy the sewing up, so that is why the fifteen flowers and thirty leaves were all finished but not assembled. I wanted to wear this to my friend Connie's birthday last weekend, so took a couple of nights in front of TV to sew the flowers and leaves together.   I chose some sunflower fabric at Dollies last Saturday and had a pattern in mind . It's been made up into a little drawstring bag, constructed from a square, folded diagonally, and then the corners are folded in to create a pocket. What I love about this bag is that the lining and pockets are all made in one - the folding means that the outside fabric is also th...