Simone Michaux

A garden bed in front of a green wall with white vertical planks, which becomes pale brick is a garden bed with borage, calendula, marigold, anise hyssop and potato flowers. Not flowering are rosemary, a small olive tree and echinacea. In the far background, beyond a green door in the pale brick, are New Zealand natives - ngutukaka, a cabbage tree and small tree ferns.

My cottagecore garden dreams are blooming!

I so so so firmly believe art is such an important tool for processing the more challenging parts of life, I don't know what I'd do without it!

Thank you so much!

Thank you! Unfortunately I did permanently lose some vision, but I'm so incredibly grateful that I still have the majority of it left. The quilt was a great way to work through some of the grief around it though!

Thank you both so much! I wasn't particularly happy with it as an unfinished square as you can see in this pic, but I love it with the new layout!

On a golden toned wooden floor lays an art quilt. The central part is a diamond shape. The lower half is made up of radiating stripes made with various shades of blue and yellow strips. The blue fades into greys and blacks at the top. In the top half are wavy black lines and circles of various sizes in black and white. Perhaps it looks a little like a very organic circuit board? On both sides of the top section there's a small gap, then an isosceles triangle made up of the same dark greys and organic circuit board. All three pieces have been faced, but still need a really unrelenting iron to look truly good. I was endeavouring to capture how my vision was when I was healing from a detached retina. While I don't get the light show any more, I've lost the top of my field of vision in my right eye. I also get visual migraines now, which might necessitate another quilt!

After a year, I finally figured out how I wanted to finish my art quilt that depicts what my vision was like when I was recovering from a detached retina. More info in alt text!

While not strictly swearing, I'm a big fan of "don't piss on me and tell me it's raining". Seems particularly appropriate for the current times!

A 1/12 segment of a circle lays on a white background. In the foreground of the segment a large brown parroty bird, with an orange blush to its cheeks, is taking a beak-full of what the artist hoped would look like full pōhutukawa blooms. Bunches of the red blooms (done with an approximation of turkey stitch) run up the segment, nestled into various greens of the tree. A small patch of blue sky shows at the top.

The sixth segment in my birdy quilt, and my least favourite. The poor Kākā got overwhelmed by the (utterly tedious) pōhutukawa. You win or you learn, eh?

Thank you so much!

Thank you! It was inspired by the colours of spring here in NZ.

Haha it's so gratifying the alt text is being read! Even if I did run out of steam halfway through it's a very fun exercise in thinking through your work in a different way.

A quilted square. If it helps, it's 12x12 inches. The artist isn't really sure how to describe it, because the longer you look at it, the less sure you become about what going on. Let's have a go anyway. In the very middle is a dark yellow dot centered in a little yellow, wobbly rectangle. The rectangles shorter edges face towards the upper left and lower right corners. On either side of the longer edges are two dark yellow wobbly rectangles with a lighter yellow circle in them. Across the shorter side of all the yellow rectangles is a light green wobbly rectangle. Each one has a larger dark yellow circle and two lighter yellow circles. Next to the long edges are medium green wobbly rectangles, each with a large light green circle, two dark yellow and two light yellow circles (although some of the lighter circles seem to disappear under the next round of wobbly triangles. Next, a darker green wobbly rectangle runs along the sides of both the yellows and the lighter greens with dots of all the previous colours. This nonsense continues on through darkest green, steely blue, blue, grey and dark grey.

I redid the binding on this piece today, and while I don't think I'll ever be crazy about it, I like it a lot more!

It's a corner of a garden and quite frankly, it's a mess. The fence is tall vertical boards, the fence directly in front is painted brown with liberal sprinkles of lichen, and the fence to the right is the faded grey of unpainted fence wood. Not that you can see much, as a young grape has been trained up against it and is doing a great job of covering it up. In the foreground on the right-hand side is a big tub with small dragon fruit plants being trained up some dead branches. Behind that, a lavender and behind that a young artichoke plant fighting for its life amongst some Four O'clocks that nearly reach the top of the fence. The Four O'clocks gradually size down as we scan to the left, but they're still hefty little bastards.

Last year the Four O'clocks put in a lot of work convincing me they were small and dainty and very decorative. This year they've abandoned all pretense and are plant-hulking out!

That's a great idea! Although, I am so bare bones with tech I know I'll probably never get around to it 🫣 thank you though ❤️

Thank you! You're absolutely right - I often have a few iterations of absolutely everything before I get the right fabric combos, can take a long time to get it right!

A 1/12 segment of a circle lays on a white background. In the upper left of the segment is a dark sky, but it fades down into grey, then blue mountains, then a rocky, alpine foreground. In the left hand lower corner are a few ferns. In the middle of the segment, a Kea (the bird, not the car) looks like it is about to land, feet outstretched towards the rocky foreground. It's wings are stretched up and out, and you can see the flash of orange feathers it hides in it's birdy armpits. Fierce!

Fifth segment of my quilted labour of love!
This time it's a Kea, the cheeky alpine parrot that loves dismantling cars and committing highway robbery.

A 1/12 segment of a circle lays on a white background. The segment itself consists of a dark sky using a variety of black and dark blue fabrics, with six bright white stars of various sizes on it. Towards the bottom of the segment, ferns of various browns and greens fade in and out of the darkness. In the foreground, a dark green forest floor emerges

A 1/12 segment of a circle lays on a white background. The segment has a dark sky consisting of black and dark blue materials, with three large brilliant white stars on it. Towards the bottom we see ferns of browns and greens fading in and out of the darkness, with a Kiwi bird also emerging on the dark green forest floor to rummage for a midnight snack.

The third and fourth segments of my perpetual birdy quilt.
Across the top is the star cluster of Matariki, whose arrival in the sky in June/July signals the start of the Māori new year.
Of course, a Kiwi had to make an appearance!

I love that perspective! I'm a chronic non-finisher, but I just cannot fathom not finishing this piece - almost feels like it's out of my hands, you know?

Thank you so much! It hasn't been completed, but I really, really want to make some solid progress this year - it's been a bit neglected recently!

Done!

bsky.app/profile/did:...

A 1/12 slice of a circle sits on a white background. The slice is predominantly shades of green with a little blue sky peeking through at the top. In the middle sits a New Zealand Kingfisher, or Kōtare, on a branch.

The second segment I did for my perpetual birdy quilt.
This sweet lad is our Kingfisher, or Kōtare.
All made using textiles, thread and a little textile paint to make those shadows pop.

I don't, but I've been thinking about trying to create a guide. It's genuinely such a fun process!

I am loving the alt text option, I truly believe it's so important! I'm still finding my feet with it, but it definitely helps me think more deeply about my work and how to describe it.

Thank you!

To deepen* the shadows. Thanks autocorrect 🫠

Picture contains 1/12 of a circle. On a background of ombre greens (darkest in the foreground up into lighter greens and finally the blue of the sky) sits a tūī in a branch of flowering flax.

A close up of the first section I did of my birdy calendar.
Entirely made in textiles, thread and a little textile paint to depend the shadows.
I create the initial scene on the top fabric and then quilt in the details.
Tūī on harakeke.

Thank you! I'll post some detail shots soon - the way some fabrics are used still full me with joy, and you definitely can't see that in these shots!

Thank you! I was really inspired by a picture of a blue metal door that was starting to rust, and the more I looked, the more I found variations of the blue/orange combo everywhere. Love it so much!

Hard agree! I will always forget something I wanted to say/realise i worded something incredibly clumsily/spot our mate autocorrect trying to do me dirty AFTER the fact 🫠