So I've been experimenting with some fabric art ideas gleaned from teh interwebz (Specifically Pintrest.  I am ADDICTED to Pintrest!  There are so many folks out there with shocking amounts of innovation and talent.  I'm definitely a wee fish in a big, scary [but awesome] pond.)

I started with some white glue resist, and combined it with this tye-dye with sharpies technique.

The glue did just fine with the sharpies (which you drop rubbing alcohol onto to make them bleed). In fact it was wonderful except for two stupidities of my own.  #1: I tried to crosshatch the colour on with the sharpies (to save time) but you could still see the lines after bleeding and it looked crappy.  The lovely dots in a circle that the Moments With Maisie folks did looks MUCH better. #2: I am an eejit and I failed to read the line in the instructions that said "let the alcohol dry".  I foolishly washed it wet and (DUH!) all my sharpie colour washed out. :(

Next I tried this spray bleach technique and had a world of problems.  Lil Blue Boo's stuff SO awesome and mine went south.  I first tried cutting my own stencil:

That's just thin cardboard.  And it worked out OK - I sprayed the bleach on it with a squirt bottle - but there was a lot of bleeding.  I expected some, but the bars on the bottom half of the kanji character were almost indistinguishable.

I also attempted the bleach stencilling that she did with a sponge and made a mess of it.  The stencils that I used were plastic (that might be the problem) but despite careful dabbing on my part the bleach bled all up under the stencil and just left a blob!  Below are the shirts my daughters made for themselves. We used the same plastic stencils and fabric paint on top of the 'ruined' attempts.  If you look carefully, you can see the pale halo of where the bleach stenciling failed!

Do any of you crafters know what I did wrong?  I just love the idea of bleach stenciled lettering but I don't know how to get clean, sharp edges.  Any ideas from those of you who do fiber art?  Help!

And now your random kitteh pic from Cool Shade Farm Cat Sanctuary!

L to R: that's Georgie, and his 'sister', Scarlet.  Scarlet and her brother, Pinky, were the only survivors of a litter that Old Momma had, and Georgie was abandoned by his still feral mom after all her other kittens died.  He was filthy and - literally - starving.  He was a wee bag of bones covered with yellow fur.  Now he's grown a huge amount and you can no longer feel every rib and bone in his spine.  He clearly loves his adopted sister, too!

Soppy animal post with insect murder!

OK, this is totally not farm stuff, but it's animal stuff, so I'm posting it, by golly!

Did you read this?

(Yes, by the way, I AM having a super news posting thingy here of late. I think it's due to my new blog which I *whispers* haven't 'unveiled' yet, so don't tell anybody. Shhhh.)

ANYway, they got the dog back! I was terrified that those effing drug bastards who nicked him would do something horrible to him, but he must have been too valuable. I'm seriously glad that this dog I don't even know is OK. How lame is that?

Oh, and I just gotta say this somewhere (gee, Blue you have, like, TEN FREAKIN BLOGS NOW! nowhere to say it? Are you joking?!) so I'll say it here, since it's animal related (kinda) and reading Dawn's blog entry today made me think of it again ...

My oldest baby is now in kindergarten and when I go to pick him up the wee ones are all sitting quietly under the covered walkway, waiting to be picked up. So, I jump out to load up my Boy and as I take his hand, an ant cow* scuttles by between us on the sidewalk. Now, these things are big and they do sting, but my nature and my faith suggest that we not destroy a living thing just because we can, especially if it's off minding it's own business, and not out to harm us in any way.

Well, I intended to herd the ant cow safely off the walk after I helped Boy up into the van but one of the teachers, with a dramatic exclamation, rushed over and stomped on the thing. Right there in front of the line of kindergartners. Way to go, teach. Good lesson. It's non aggressive, non-poisonous, and a good 3 feet away, heading in the opposite direction, and you run it down and stamp it into goo in front of the kids.

I hope she wasn't one of the science teachers.

( This is what *I* was taught to call them and is probably a typical result of my mother's 'evolving' speech. She will hear a word or phrase, mis-repeat it, and forever pronounce/say it that way even if corrected. In fact, correcting her only makes her angry and more stubborn. Her brain manufactures Mondegreens from everyday speech and i aquired quite a few that caused me embarrasment as an adult. Her 'ant cows' are actually Velvet Ants or Cow Killer Ants [dasymutilla occidentalis] and aren't ants at all but wasps.)