The red and the gray

It is a cold January day, as I look out my window I can see little flurries of snowflakes swirling to the ground. Alas, once they touch down they simply disappear, much to the disappointment of my girl and myself. Just enough of the white stuff for playing in and making a mini snow-person would be wonderful.

Instead I am inside playing with pots of paints and managing to avoid the laundry altogether.

It might be some time before I can set myself up with some screen printing equipment, so I'm going with what I have on hand. I'm taking some ideas from my sketchbook and bringing them to life.

Testing, testing... 1 2 3

Oh yes, I like that!

Some days it is good to simply enjoy the process, have fun with experimentation and not worry too much about the end result. You might be surprised where it leads you. In fact, I now have a completely new direction I am thinking of taking this experiment. How unexpectedly grand!

What are you up to today?
Is it hot or cold where you are?
Had any surprises lately?

Do you know the story of

No?
Well, neither do I. Not the whole story anyway.

There's Fleeto the Rabbit of course.

And a school bus...possibly a magic school bus...an unusual sort of school bus at the very least.

Though I don't know the whole story yet, the bits and pieces are starting to come together. The story of Fleeto the Rabbit. Hmmmm...

New Work

A great big smooshy thank you to all you beautiful muses out there! All of your ideas and thoughts were wonderful. I now have a a whole big gorgeous list of makes for the future. I really loved Flaming Nora's idea for stitching me up some album cover art, that is so gonna happen! Colette told me to try my hand at something I've been wanting to for ages, and that is exactly what I did/am doing.

When you try something new you:
Make mistakes -
Learn a lot -
Possibly let some not-so-nice words escape your lips -
Have the satisfaction of being a bit brave to try something new -
Find out if it is something you want to do again...
...and yes, I do! In fact I'm just a-tizzy with the possibilities!

Thank you my friends, for helping to loose the cogs!

Care to try something new yourself? Have a wonderful weekend!

'Ta Da!'...It was fun, it was hard, I learned a lot...or the trouble with photographing an eclipse

and on with the reveal...
You'll just have to believe me when I say that this looks different in person...and by 'different', I mean better. This little art quilt is a trick and a half to photograph. I just couldn't seem to capture it's 'trueness'.

I'm calling it, Eclipse.

a patch of antique kimono silk, that was patched itself - long ago by distant hands.

When I see it hanging on the wall, it makes me smile and jump ahead in my mind to the next one, and the next one after that; for that is how much I really and absolutely like it. There is a good heaping helping of the 'journey over the destination' appeal here.

the print was made using a hand-cut stencil and detail masking with custom mixed fabric inks.

It was meant to be primitive, simple, and an experiment just to see if it might work, this long mulled over idea of mine. Oh yes, next time there will be less impatience, more care and a few different choices but, there will indeed be a next time.
What I learned for the future was:
1. A less loosely woven fabric for large prints would be much better, making for considerably less shifty infuriation, seeping inks, and nasty cursings.
2. Use fresh inks - I used some that were a bit past their prime and paid for it.
3. My embroidery skills need a little polishing up.

Oh, I do like it though, so does the engineer by the way. And I'm just going to pretend that the smaller wonky embroidered circle is not driving me batty! (I pulled out the stitches twice and on my third go it was still askew - so I figured it was best left to it's heartbreaking honesty.)

Well, that's all I've got for today. I think for my next unveiling, I might go for something a little less nerve wracking, a safe recipe perhaps...