Handkerchiefs

As I'm sick at the moment (for about the fifth time this year - what is going on?) I have spent way too much time looking at my old handkerchiefs - yep, I've still got some classics from my late '70s/early '80s childhood. I'm not sure how hard it is to get a good hankie these days (no tartan or old lady patterns for me) so decided to make some of my own.



I've since decided the negative and positive are the wrong way around, as you don't really want to be blowing you nose onto a slab of ink, but am happy with how it's coming along (the pic is taken from a page of a book I designed for a project earlier this year - it's a giraffe eating leaves from a tree, in case you can't tell).

And working on this has reminded me why it's so fun but also challenging working on 'real' things (as opposed to clicking away at pretend things on a computer) - fabrics don't sit straight, they fold and move when you don't want them to, inks have a thickness (I need to play around with getting them thinner, so it doesn't resemble flattened puffy paint!), mixing colours is a time consuming process, and they look different when applied to fabric. Etc etc. But these are all the things that make it interesting, and is great when it works out how you want.

So it's almost back to the drawing board for me, I need to add a second colour (the falling leaf is suppposed to be maroon) - happy days.