She Shoots, She Scores

A week ago, my garden was covered with snow. Today it was 60 degrees. Bill saw a robin and a red-winged blackbird. Yesterday I heard a killdeer. We almost always get snow again in late March (and sometimes April, and occasionally in May). And I can't put tender things out without frost protection until at least after Memorial Day (last year it frosted on June 3). But in my head, I've moved into spring mode. I'm not wearing long underwear today. Not all March Madness is about basketball.

But before I move on to the willow harvest and other rites of spring, I wanted to share one last blast from winter. If you read my other blog, Two Red Threads, you're probably familiar with my affection for Silly String. This winter, I used it as a resist element in snow dyeing and on a spray-painted T-shirt. My final cabin-fever-induced application of Silly String went like this:

• Collage. Working quickly, I made a big collage with paper torn from recycled magazine pages and a glue stick. It's one of my standard creativity exercises.
• Shoot String. Then I shot the collage with Silly String. Silly String Max, to be precise. That's the gray line element. If you need a soundtrack for this, go for Bob Marley.
• Shoot Photo. I took several photographs of the collage (overall and detail shots) with my digital camera and uploaded them to my computer. Then I pasted images into a document.
• Print. I printed the image to translucent inkjet heat transfer paper.
• Transfer. Using a hot, dry iron (no steam), I transferred the image to fabric recycled from a no-longer-white T-shirt that Bill will never again be seen wearing in public.
• Layer. I layered the transfer with fabric reclaimed from other T-shirts that have seen better days.
• Stitch. During American Idol one night, I stitched the layers together and sewed on a couple of snaps to make an abstract cuff-style bracelet.

I shoot, I stitch, I score a fun piece of wearable art: That's my way of dealing with March Madness: What's yours?