Today? She is soapbox day. I’m not talking about those little cars Boy Scouts race (everybody knows those races are for the dads, anyhow); I am talking about being on one. I have been jumping on them all day. I will not go into details, as this post is not actually about soapboxes, but whatever. It was a really great copout intro.

So. Today I finished the giant project of thumb-cramping doom (doom!) and now I can do other things only I am not and instead am blogging and making snake gourd curry, because the husband bought one and thought I might like to experiment it (actually, I think he bought it because it let him say “snake” and “gourd” in reference to each other, which I can’t totally blame him for).

I spent the rest of the time between getting home and cooking gourds planning how to do the printing project. Here is my Plan:

1. Research enough that I can do this pretty confidently. I’m just about halfway there.

2. Purchase supplies (Hancock has muslin real darn cheap, and I’m not picky). This is concurrent with #1.

3. Test. This will take a while, and will make me curse. However, better that I curse on little 6″x6″ squares than on a whole big piece of fabric.

4. Print fabric, once tests have yielded a successful result.

5. Make skirt and revel in the success of a first project. Plot for entry into an ArtSci competition at some point.

Oh, and in there is to carve a block for the border design, or maybe get some trim to sew on (but I’ll probably do a printed border, too).

I can totally make this happen before July 17, right? Right.

And because I haven’t gotten to the doing stage yet, here’s a spiffy guy in Jaipur, printing away. He makes it look so easy:

And this guy? Not a cheater like me. No, he’s making the print block the old-fashioned, non-linoleum-and-Speedball way (I’m still practicing with linoleum and the Speedball lino cutters, because if I went to all this trouble and screwed up, I’d be pissed):

Tomorrow is Friday! Woohoo!