Getting started is half the battle

I've been craving new hand-dyed fabric for a while now, and finally decided to take the plunge and participate in a fabric swap organized by Leslie Keating at maze and vale. What a fun group of people it turns out I get to exchange fabric with. For me, getting started is always the hardest part, so I dug deep for courage, did lots of drawings, put up some works in progress where I wanted more hand printed fabric and started. My first pass was definitely a warm-up. The first print with my paper laminate stencil? Really. It looks like makeup you would put on your face, a typical foundation color. It does. The red circles were okay, and the aqua stamps, hmmm.

I had a quiet house, so this weekend was a fiber retreat for me. I've been going back to my favorite, dyeing fabric with fiber reactive dyes, and exploring using print paste to paint with dye. I've also been simply enjoying. Definitely a work in progress, but these small tries below have potential; the steel blue circles are casually fun without looking stamped. (play dough cover) I enjoyed trying rubbing with the circles and mesh. Mom is taking a bigger piece of mesh for this weekend. Ended up with about 8 yards of fabric dyed, but the Cobalt blue wasn't my friend, didn't set very well so I have light mauves and greens instead of gray. Overdying, here we come. Can't wait to continue.