My leather thimble

Can't really work with a thimble! I tried it. Then I created this device: It is a simple ring out of sturdy leather, and it is very helpful. Yes, I'm hand quilting the chickenshack. Hard work, I tell you. Got the needle's eye under my thumbnail once. Oy.

And. I was insanely printing!
Last night, I did these lino prints and more. These were the best. I used old lino print colour I have had in my stash for ages -- actually I did my latest lino print when I was ... ??? ... 18 or so. It's self-archeology as Terry has been doing it recently.
Would you like to get stamps like this custom-made?

Animals

I promised a bird, and what happened? A tiger lino print.
I'm not too satisfied, the print is pale, maybe the paint is too dry -- I've had it in my stash for a few years. Diluting helped a little bit.

New paints, new prints

The new paints were waiting patiently to get tried. I did it last night, when my husband decided to watch Pulp Fiction he recorded. He is a collector. I don't mind some film blood sheding, but I want to be the director. So I tried some printing on one of my husband's discarded t-shirts. I found out that this material is much better than the old bed sheet I tried before. Then I overpainted parts of it. The colours that my friend C gave me are beautiful.
I print on wet cloth, this makes the paint bleed a little, but the paint is taken by the cloth better than by dry cloth. But with cotton jersey, this doesn't seem to be a problem any more.
The colours were a lot lighter after drying. I'm not sure whether I should overprint, overpaint them or leave them as they are. I also like this batik-like technique with the stenciled white, but it is laborious. I'm at the very beginning of experience. That's a great feeling.

Outdoor studio

Under blue sky: The most pleasant place to work at. The kids are still in school, so the backyard is quiet.I cut another stamp and did some printing, looks very conventional:
Again, I made a lino cut from a traditional Estonian pattern and print it on slightly wet cloth. On dry cloth, the paint was not really taken up by the surface. On wet cloth, there is a slight bleeding of dye which actually looks quite interesting like aged or bleached dye. I let it dry now and will add some more painting and printing.










I also cut a foil stencil and use a stencil paint which contains oil. The stenciled shape is almost invisible. The white patterns have strongly resisted the paint which rolled off.







The intention is to fix them on the witch gown as if she had taken traditional clothes as a trophy from those she bewitched, just as she integrated the pictures of the young man in her gown which is all part of her sorcery.
I imagine her as a lady of the woods who lures a young man into unknown pleasures which make him addicted to her.

Well -- experiments don't necessarily work

Print, paint, print. I made the cloth wet and painted with dye. The wet paint runs nicely into the free space between dried print. When this is dry, I'll print or stencil some more light paint on the dark parts. I could stencil some white paint which contains oil and get some batik-like effect... Estonian weaving and knitting typically showed stripes running through the pattern.
I'm not sure if I am so much into printing, but lino-cutting is fun. I should try more. Then I will love printing, too. -- Some artists find coincidence very helpful, I'm still not sure if I prefer serendipity or control.

Now I fixed it to the witch gown and quilted it. Forgot to iron it. Okay, it's not a teen football star's sportswear that needs to be washed every few days.