300 T-shirts

Okay, the title is a bit misleading. This is actually about two different things.

First: 300 posts! Wow - can you believe it? Who'd have thought that I had so much to share? And to think, I nearly stopped blogging at the beginning of this year. I felt like I was running out of interesting things to say...but I realized that blogging was helping me get things out of my head and share pictures, drawings, ideas, adventures in sewing, quilting, stenciling, painting, constructing and deconstructing. After periods of not blogging, I'd start missing it and would compose posts in my head on my drives home from work...that's when I would know that it was time to get back to the blog.

And with this 300th post, I have a new project to share (which is the second of the two different things this post is about): I've come to realize that my stock of funky (and clean) t-shirts has dwindled over the past few years. I love t-shirts, but I tend to wear them to death, then use them to paint, garden, sheet rock and do any other dirty jobs in them...till they fall apart.

I was looking into replenishing this stock until I figured that, paying anywhere from $20 to $30 each for new t-shirts, was going to add up and quickly. So working from Angry Chicken & Soule Mama's examples, I started making my own funky t-shirts...first, using freezer paper stencils, then using stencils and freehand drawing with fabric pens and finally this:drawn completely freehand with a black fabric pen and filled in with fabric paint.
I found an image online that really spoke to me, and used it as inspiration. I'm going to paint the earth in the void of hair near her nose and use this quote: "those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts" from Rachel Carson. I just really love it.

This is actually my mother's t-shirt. She already knows about it, but she won't see the finished product until Mother's Day.

Well, I'm off to iron for the coming week and maybe pop over to see my sister on this rain soaked day. Enjoy the last of the weekend and I hope the sun is shining wherever you are!