Yesterday my Man and I started the day early by walking up to Cafe Pedlar. I have been collecting images of coffee from them and really like this one.

Then we walked down through Red Hook to go food shopping at Fairway. On our return trip I snapped this photo. I love hearing birds pass by overhead.

It seems Hankies will be a continued affection for me (I would also say obsession). And because I wanted to see how the stencil I cut this weekend would look, I printed this hankie blank. Generally, I like it. I think the roses appear a bit too fragmented because I was hesitant to cut the 'bridges' that are necessary to maintain in the integrity of a good stencil. I am wanting to create a multicolored stencil, so I am going to cut another set and this time I will work harder to 'get' the roses right.

On Friday I dyed the three soy wax resisted hankies I spoke about in this post.

This has been such a fun project.

I have four hankies soda soaked and ready for printing, I am thinking they will be freezer paper resisted with intricate little corners-trees, birds, peaks of buildings and cityscapes. I see myself wanting to work on this project for a little longer and wanting to purchase more hankie blanks.

In kismet like similarity, a woman name Sophie Herxheimer has a Call Out for hankies (with an extended deadline) through The London Printworks Trust. I am going to send at least one of these hankies, if not more. You?

I have been working on Hankies, slow and steady, I like this project a bunch. The above hankie's edge was painted with Pebeo Setacolor , then stamped with a multicolor stamp. The Hankie itself is a tiny little square of hemmed silk habotai (bought from Dharma Trading). These feel more like pocket squares than hankies, but fun and pretty just the same.

Here I am showing you a 'before' photograph and ask that you return in a few days to see the 'after'.

My Man and I are preparing for our Switzerland trip and for whatever reason, he came up with the idea that we needed denim jackets. This made us go to the Levi's store in Times Square. Hemmed squares, hankies and bandanas have taken my creative attention, so when I got to the cash register and saw this bandana for $12.50 I thought, 'Soy Wax!', save the money and make your own! Haha!

Stay tuned.

Hankie blanks arrived at Casa Melly this week. I have been anxious to start printing and playing with them.

You can see a bit of a rose that has been popping up in my work in the lower left side of this painting. And the rose was just sitting there, looking pretty and asking me to print it in a multicolored stamp.

So I cut the stamp, mixed the paints and tried it out on scrap. I made slight adjustments to the colors before proceeding. I used to just start printing right on the good stuff and I have learned the hard way that using scrap is a great help.

Then I went for the gusto and printed the stamp on a cotton hankie. This rose stamp measures about 4 inches and I have to say, I love the size! It is incongruous to what you might think of as 'hankie size' and that makes it work for me.

I may do a tutorial later in the month but for now perhaps you might be inspired by this incised stamp making video.

Or perhaps you might like to purchase a back issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors that explains the multicolored stamp making process in detail, Patricia Gaignat taught me all I know about it and she wrote an article to boot!