upside

It's funny, since I posted the entry before, about how I was feeling a bit down, uninspired and negative I have read two blog posts, from people I admire, both wonderfully talented, who seem to have been feeling the same.
Lara Cameron from Kirin Notebook posted here about feeling stressed and putting pressure on herself. And just now I have read an entry on Pia Jane Bijkerk's blog admitting anxieties about her work.
I am reminded to stop and smell the roses and enjoy the fact that I can be creative, which I really enjoy and need. And if that's not enough I can always laugh at the dog in her new winter jacket :-)

my tea towels are famous!

I've been having one of those weeks, I've had the blahs as we call them round here. A bit down and not very inspired.
This morning I woke up to find a comment from the lovely Leanne Graff saying my tea towels had been on the front page of Etsy (thanks Leanne!). I had a request for some custom tea towels and the sun is shining. I found the half finished tote bag I was making when my sewing machine broke down (things like to hide in this house!) and I'm off to buy some potting mix to pot up the violas we bought a couple of weeks ago. School holidays start tomorrow and we are going away for a week on Thursday. I think some new sights and catching up with friends and family might be just what I need.

fabric printing

The day before yesterday I finally found time to do some experimenting with my block prints and some different colour inks I had bought last week. Time consuming but lots of fun. I had to make myself use each colour and not just flit from one to the other, which I am prone to do!
I mixed the lighter mushroom brown by using some white and blue with the brown ink and I got another green by adding white. I want to get some yellow ink to make a real lime green.
While I had the brown mixed I used it to print a couple of tea towels for the shop. I really like the way they turned out and the seventies ceramic style they have. I love this turquoisy blue too and will have to buy a larger pot of ink (I'm using silkscreen Permaset fabric colour).
I got round to mounting my handcut stamp of three leaves on a wooden block which was for getting a clean print, with the unmounted block I always seemed to ink some of the surrounding cut marks and print them. I haven't mounted my star/flower shape yet and you can see the difference.
Some of these swatches are up for swapping on my Flickr. I wasn't sure I would have the time to do more swaps with people so I have left it till now. If anyone likes the look of them just Flickr mail me, first come first swapped!