A wintery day of play.........

Yes, I said wintery day of play......what happened to spring??? I remember having 3 or 4 days of it and then we went back to winter - today torrential rains, wind, big hail and tonight the snow level will fall to 2500 ft and freeze warnings in the valley. Guess I'll need to pull all those planters on the deck up against the house or lose all.

So, here's the finished scarf of my handspun merino/tencel warp crossed with a commercial bamboo weft. I had been undecided on the sett and ended up changing it from 15 epi to 18 epi. It turned out beautiful but in hindsight I wish I had left it at 15 epi. The feel of this is 'like butter'. I added some beading in-between the twisted fringes, it doesn't show much which is planned, I didn't want a lot of added color to pop out, I just wanted sparkle. I'm happy with this.

So here was the beginning of my play day.....surface design. I never shop at Penney's but the other night some cute women's t's with cap sleeves caught my eye in the sale ad (sale is still on for a few days). How could I resist? Only $5.99, regular $14.00, just calling out to be embellished. I did keep a couple plain but had to play with the rest. Although not pictured many have a little embellishment on the sleeve or on the back shoulder. I could have gone crazy with the stenciling and silk screening but in reality I don't like that much design, much prefer simple and understated. First was the chartruese t that I bought to wear under this great rayon piece. I used stencils and Shiva Paintstiks - love the way it turned out.

Next was the brown t where I used a ginko stencil sheet and gold, copper and yellow gold paintstiks. The second picture is of the back shoulder.

Then a cute little flower in white paintstik on purple

The lotus blossom is one of the silkscreens I made last year - I used chartruese Lumiere paint. This also has a cute little chinese knot on each sleeve and the back shoulder

And finally on the black t a neat little abstract design in white paintstik with dragonflies in lavendar, green and blue

paintstiks. The second picture is the back shoulder. Since I'm not an experienced photographer I'm not sure why the wavy lines turn up on the body of the t-shirts in these photos. Sometimes it happens when photographing handwovens on the loom too.

Ok, big decision - do I head back to Penney's for more little t's...