Entry the twenty-third: Stenciled onesies and a basket!

Valerie and I spent all of Saturday learning how to make baskets out of Torrey pine needles at the UCSD Craft Center. I didn't manage to finish that day (Valerie did, the showoff), so it looked like this when I took it home.



Yesterday I was freakishly (for me) productive. If I had more days like yesterday, I wouldn't need a blog to nudge me into getting things done! (I'm serious. I need this blog to lurk in the back of my consciousness saying "you could post pictures if you actually got something done. Plus, I'm pink!") First, I finished my basket.



Here it is again, this time with the obligatory (and irritated) small brown cat included for scale purposes.



Then I washed some stuff. I will spare you pictures of that. But after that I drew and cut out stencils from freezer paper and then ironed them on some onesies.



I followed these directions on this blog.

I used silk screen fabric paint and discovered that dark fabrics are, well, dark and difficult to cover with lighter colors. Yellow paint over navy blue fabric, for instance, does not work. At all. Luckily the white paint is quite opaque so I mixed that with the yellow and painted a second coat an hour or so later with better results.



When I got home tonight, the first thing I did is run next door (yes, next door... it's sort of our annex... it's a long story) to bring all the onesies back. I carefully peeled the paper off a few of them and was delighted to discover that the stencils were a success! (Apologies for the lack of pictures of this stage -- you'll just have to come up with your own mental image.)

I decided that several of the onesies needed another coat of paint before going further. The ones with the successfully-stenciled designs had a second stencil ironed on over them and then I painted the second design element. This one will have a pink mouse on top of a piece of yellow cheese.



Whew! More tomorrow when I see how the mouse comes out. :-)

P.S. My husband would like the world (or at least the four people who read this blog) to know that "Trader Joe's Chocolate Sandwich Creme Joe-Joe's are the Devil's Lunchbox." Whatever that means.