More hand stitched triangles, showing off some of the fabric I have printed recently using a gelatin plate (more on that in a minute) and some of the silks I succumbed to in Belfast, ME. Belfast has an amazing and wonderful little art and fabric store, right in the middle of town. My good mother was singing its praises, and I failed to believe her until Kate and I stepped inside. And then it was kind of hard to breathe because there were so many amazing things to see. I cannot do it justice. Go visit Fiddlehead Artisan Supply and be delighted.
I signed up for a class with Linda Germain to learn more and better ways to print on fabric using a gelatin plate. It is made from Knox unflavored gelatin and glycerine. The result is tough, rubbery and fun to mess with. The class has been fun, and I have learned some elegant techniques to get quite detailed prints from leaves and other natural things, as well as learned in the abstract about layering color. I still have a lot of learning to go on that topic! But it did mean I got some new inks for printing on fabric. After using them cautiously for a couple rounds of experimenting, I decided to give myself a gold star for each jar I used up, and if I use them all up, I WIN! I am not sure what I win, but I will have made more things and learned more things than if I’d spent time conserving paint or fabric.
And finally, I marched on Saturday along with, apparently, between 3 and 4 million others. My family and I stayed local, expecting a couple hundred people and ten minutes of speeches. What we wound in the middle of was 2500 people, celebrating solidarity, feminism, parenthood and the sunshine. I was so glad I went, and so glad so many others turned out. I will leave you with this short video of us as we go under the truck-eating bridge into the middle of town.
Lee Thomson 