Boy Lacer finally has his paediatrician’s appointment tomorrow (only four months late), where his diagnosis will be officially changed (currently it’s ‘ social communication disorder probable autistic spectrum’ because at the time of the last appointment seven months ago they had yet to do an assessment of Boy Lacer playing with other children, the assessment was actually done a few weeks after the appointment, we’ve just been waiting this long for the results). Ok much as all his therapists have been pussy footing around still using the words ‘probable’, ‘likely’ and ‘possible’, every single piece of paperwork we’ve had home has just listed Boy Lacer as straightforward asd, no probable, likely or possible about it. I excepted the autism diagnosis ages ago but there’s always the thought of ‘it could be something else’ or ‘they might not even know what it is’ sort of thing.
Anyway my plans for today was to do some sewing, I haven’t had the sewing machine out since before we went on holiday and I’ve been looking forward to do some more sewing for ages. I finally had another swapbot project to do (the problem with my swapbot habit is that I tend to collect a whole group of them, concentrate on them, get them all out and only then look for more projects and signing up to new projects means I have a bit of a wait before swap partners are assigned and I can’t start work till then), I had an art quilt to do (my first ever one). So I did the embroidery I wanted to do for it last night, cut the pieces this morning, got my sewing machine out of it’s new safe place in my wardrobe, set it up, got my first two pieces of fabric together, sat them on the machine and “Oh where’s the foot gone?”. It had fallen off somewhere and I knew it could have only have fallen off in the bedroom where it’s stored and although it’s now currently stored safely in the bottom of the wardrobe, for a while I didn’t have a particularly safe place to put it and I think that’s when it probably fell off. So I spent the rest of the morning and a good part of the afternoon looking for the foot and I couldn’t find it. I now have a very tidy bedroom, which is about the only bonus. My bedroom had been an organisational work in progress for about the last week anyway and I think I may have gathered up and thrown away the foot without realising it, earlier on this week, so I’ll need to get a new one now and I guarantee you when I get it I’ll find the old one. So my art quilt was on hold. So in crafting frustration I went window shopping on Etsy and nearly brought a huge pile of Japanese fabric, twice, but I controlled myself, actually it was quite a bargain load of Japanese fabric, from an Etsy shop actually based in Japan, they had some lovely green and blue prints and I do like my green and blue prints and the price of the fabric including shipping was cheaper than a lot of ‘nice’ fabrics that you get here. I want to make quilts for Girl and Boy Lacer, a fairy tale themed one for Girl Lacer and a forest themed one for Boy Lacer and Japanese fabrics are so nice and detailed, I can just imagine the kids (well Girl Lacer at least) having great fun looking at the different fabrics.
Anyway I had to craft something and with my sewing machine out of action I hit upon the idea of some fabric paint action. I luckily have quite a supply of Dylon fabric paint left over from Christmas costumes from um last Christmas and I have a supply of blank T-shirts. Add a book I’d brought a while ago, Stencil 101: Make Your Mark with 25 Reusable Stencils and Step-by-Step Instructions
I had to stop in the end before I literally stencilled everything I owned, I do need some plain T-shirts as I’ve purchased two quite low cut dresses recently and unless I put a plain T-shirt under them I will quite literally cause traffic accidents or at least make a builder fall off his scaffolding (I sadly have a bra size Jordon would aspire to and it’s all natural). Anyway in the end I ran out of floor space in my bedroom studio, so this is where I had to stop.
All stencils from Ed Roth’s book (it’s great, you can just literally pull out the reusable stencil from the book and stencil straight away), the first one I did was the Planet of the Apes like ape, which I love, I think it came out really well, specially considering I was worried that trying to stencil on a slightly ribbed fabric was probably not the best of ideas. The next was the gangster car, which also came out really well and giving me excellent instant crafter gratification. Both of those T-shirts were for me, the next two were for Girl Lacer, the surprisingly punkish poodle (I chose the poodle because it was one of the most girlish stencils) with the turquoise paint proving that I can go beyond black, on the pink T-shirt. Then the final one was the owl, which is for a sleep T-shirt and considering it was the last stencil I did in this session, it went wrong, you can’t see the eyes. But all in all I am very pleased with the results, I love the graffiti, almost spray painted look, it makes cheap T-shirts look a lot more designery. I predict some more stenciling as soon as I can get my hands on some more plain T-shirts, I’m also seeing some stencilled bags on the horizon! I’d love to do some wall stencilling to but Mr. Lacer still thinks stencilling belongs in the 90s, but I’m getting sick to death of plain white walls!
On a final note, whilst downloading the T-shirt photo, I downloaded some recent photos from my garden that I took whilst hanging round on my front doorstep with Boy Lacer whilst waiting for Girl Lacer to get changed into her tap kit. You can see exactly how proud I am of the weeds in my garden here and here plus something that is actually meant to be there here and here.
