STASH day at my house

Our STASH (Second Thursday at Somebody's House) group met at my house today. We were short two of our members. Suzy is in California taking care of her grandson and Gerrie was having cataract surgery this morning. Sometimes when members have conflicts we try to reschedule, but that always seems to make matters worse, so I left the day as planned. Still, we missed both of them.

We have really gotten out of the habit of doing much at our meetings besides a bit of show and tell, a lot of chatting and eating. I decided we needed a little artistic stimulation. A couple years ago we carved stamps at one of our meetings. I asked everyone to bring them as well as fabric, fabric paints and supplies for printing. I set up our deck table with a big sheet of glass for rolling paint out on, padded surfaces, paper towels and water. We spent a very pleasant hour or so visiting and printing.

Here are some of my stamps.

I started with a commercial batik fabric that seemed a little boring to me.

I used three different stamps on it.

I' not sure this is an improvement to the original, but it was fun to experiment and one thing I definitely discovered is that my dragonfly stamp needs to be carved a bit deeper to get crisper edges and details.

I served lunch on the deck and after lunch we had a quick tour of the studio construction progress. They hung doors this morning and are finishing up the drywall. The next time my turn to host the group rolls around we will probably be meeting in the studio. That's an exciting thought!