Back from England

Well, to be honest I have been back for 2 weeks, but wow did it kick my butt being gone form school for so long - I have felt very behind even though I am actually only waiting for one teacher to come back from a trip so I can do a makeup test. (I got ahead before I left and am now up to date in all of my other classes.) I had an amazing time on my trip, but I don't know that I particularly plan to blog about it. We went to a lot of museums, but had to sign wavers that we wouldn't electronically share the photos we took - and I somehow doubt many people reading this are actually that interested in 17th century embroidery and gold thread production..... Anyway one of the things that we did do that I loved was go to see the Merry Wives if Windsor at the Globe, which was fantabulous and I only wish Paul and the kids could have been there because they would have loved it! The picture is one courtesy of my friend Jen, we were at Hampton Court Palace and found a niche that looked just like something my kids would love to stand in and have their pictures taken as statues, so I of course had to fill in for them!

So I got back to school and had to jump in both feet running, I was pretty much where I needed to be with my Peruvian weaving class, but my surface design class was going to take some catching up. I had a jacket that I needed to shibori dye the fabric for and then sew for an upcoming critique and then I have a whole bunch of stencil and thermofax samples I need to get done by this next Tuesday. Paul and I had our 11th wedding anniversary on the 8th of Oct, Isaac had his 10th birthday on the 9th (we took him to Busch Gardens Europe) and then he had a friend's party on the 10th - busy, busy, busy!

I managed to get the jacket for surface design done at 4:00 a.m. the morning it was due, but don't currently have any pictures because I haven't gotten it back from grading yet. I will make sure I do a photo shoot and write up here when I do get it though. What I do have to share today are a little glimpse of my thermofax and my stencil for an upcoming project. (Paul helped me come up with a theme after a random honey discussion we had!)

I drew a nice fat bee and can I tell you just how exciting it is to see your own image made into a screen!

The stencil was pretty exciting too, I cut it out of mylar with an exacto-knife and then used a foamy roller to apply it.

We are using thickened dye to print with although I will also be experimenting with pigment too. All of the samples we are doing will lead up to a project due by the end of November, I am pretty excited about being in production with my own screen printing etc. Hooray for fun classes at school!