Monthly Archives: April 2010

Sheep and Kombucha

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The fiber arts class took a trip down to the farm to sheer the sheep Sterling has on loan from Bonnieview. I got to step out of the office for a little bit, step into my work pants and check out some of the action.

It had been a while since I’d been down to look at the lambs. All of the sheep have had their babies now (all adorable) and there were quite a few little black lambs (pretty obviously from that handsome fella McCain/Fabio). This particular black lamb was having a great time climbing up his mother and leaping off into the air over his siblings…

Amanda wrestled one of the sheep into the first shearing position almost all by herself. It was great to see people working with sheep and trying to figure out how to wrangle them.

Amanda wanted to make sure her sheep was ok with this whole “reclining” thing. She was rubbing her tum tum and crooning to her while she waited to shear.

In other news, Joe and I have been experimenting with Kombucha. We got a mother from someone at Sterling and made a batch. Which tasted like fizzy apple juice! I think it’s amazing that we can take black tea and sugar and turn it into something that tastes like cider without the alcohol or the apples! All natural and pretty cool to watch.


Dorm Batik

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So. I threw two batik “parties” (I’m using that term lightly… there were brownies involved) and this is what those crazy kids made (more or less). The fabric is about 4 feet long (shorter in some cases because, as the glue was drying, two strips got stuck together so firmly that they had to be amputated) and roughly two feet wide. We used elmer’s glue, watered down acrylic paint and plain ole white cotton fabric. It doesn’t get any simpler.

Now these beauts are hanging around the common rooms. The process and results were awesome, but I’m not quite sure that these are as impressive as I’d imagined them turning out. Ah well…

Prints

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Since I bought all those block printing supplies I keep seeing things that would make great prints! What am I going to do!? Oh, that’s right, I’ll make tons and tons of blocks!


I’m rather fond of this teal llama-deer. I just wish I could figure out how to make the prints come out as solid as this one did! They’re awfully spotty for some reason…

And then I decided to experiment with some fabric printing! One thing leads to another these days…

I found this tutorial over at JezzePrints (which is a wonderful little blog) called No-Fuss Printing. Basically you cut the stencil out of transparency paper and then squeegie the fabric paint over the stencil with something small and stiff like a credit card. So easy! So I practiced on a bunny (of course). I love the idea, so I think I’ll have a go at some more once I can think of something neat to draw. Any suggestions? Inspiration?

Block Printing

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I did some block printing in college (so long ago, I know!) and I loved it. So when I spied block printing supplies in an art store when we were in Worcester over the weekend, I splurged and bought a roller, some ink, some carving tools and three different sized blocks. I carved my first (and smallest) block yesterday and did some test prints…

Look familiar?

I’m looking forward to making more prints from the dream bunny and carving more from the extra blocks I bought. My next project is to figure out how to make a recycled frame for these. Any ideas?