How to cover yourself in fabric paint

I've been madly trying to finish off some projects before I meet my new little grandson, Dylan Rohan.   He looks so chubby and cute, and has hair!  None of my other grandchildren had so much hair! I wonder what colour it will turn out to be and what colour his eyes will be. I wonder what he will love doing. His oldest cousin Will is tall, brown-eyed and brown haired, and loves playing with dogs.  Jac, his other cousin, is petite, blue-eyed and blond, and adores being outside.  Being a grandparent is wonderful!  We get to know these new little people that we shared in creating and who will be our gift to the world. We get to spoil them, love them, play with them, and share their wonder at, and joy about, the world. They truly are a blessing.

Perhaps because of my excitement, I have been particularly messy lately.

Firstly, I printed several versions of this very fine, little stencil of feathers, birds and eggs on white cotton ( a pig to cut out)



 and was satisfied until, as I was laying out the print, the wind blew through the door of my grand studio, and whipped the material onto my apron, smudging a lot of the prints and turning my apron blue.  Unfortunately, I didn't realise my apron was stained until I took a break for a cup of coffee, sat in the armchair to read a book, and turned the book blue.  Luckily, the armchair survive unscathed.

I decided to check out my leaf stencils cut from Easy Cut plastic, and was pretty pleased with these attempts:

 

until I realised that I had somehow stained my face with the paint and looked like a woad-covered Pict.

Continuing my Japanese influenced screen printing with Easy Cut stencils, I carefully lined up my stencils,

 carefully placed the frame over them,

carefully applied the paint

  and was overjoyed at this  print:




..........so I decided to move the material down the side of the table and do a second one.  That was my big mistake!  I leant against the print...........I only noticed what I had done when I went to lay the 2 prints down on the drying rack and discovered this:

and then, discovered that my windcheater sleeves were covered in paint.  Hope it washes out!  I love that windcheater. Sigh. And, I discovered I had stained another apron. Sigh.

I  thought I had learned from my mistake, and was savvy about clutzing, until I went to class.

 I cut out two hexagonal linocuts and was relieved when I did not make my typical mistake of skidding the tool and ruining the pattern.

 I love this bug stencil on fabric......

but, I managed to reverse the image in 2 places. Never mind...... I'll pretend I intended to do it.

This is my last print - a cicada print which is deliberately random in directions, so I can't be accused of making a mistake!

I consider all these errors part of my learning experience - in public ( privately, I have been cursing).  I am claiming that I never repeat the same mistake twice (cough, cough). Plus, since I haven't decided what I am going to do with all these fabric prints, it doesn't really matter.  A lot of them did turn out very well.  So far, the suggestions for those range from pillowcases, to quilts, to aprons, to bags, to dress panels.  It'll be interesting to see whether they end up in my pile of fabrics or actually get used.  Those which didn't work can be cut up and used in collage style pieces of work.  Nothing is ever wasted.  And, I can always try again, as both the stencils and the linocuts are reusable. 

Anyway, this break from printing is probably a very good thing.  I need a break from destruction!