Over 100,000 served!

I don’t normally pay much attention to my blog stats, but I noticed today that the little counter in the bottom right is reporting over 100,000 visitors to my website!  And Google Analytics confirms it: over 103,000 unique visitors since October 2009, resulting in about 375,000 pageviews.  That’s worth some champagne!

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to dedicate some time this weekend to surface design.  I have  too many faaaaaabulous toys I haven’t played with yet!  In particular, I want to get to know my Thermofax machine.  I bought mine more or less on impulse – I had been idly searching for one for several months, but they cost anywhere from $800-1000, and I wasn’t ready to shell out that kind of money.  Then one came up on Craigslist for a mere $500 – half the going rate! – and I leaped into the car, drove like a maniac to the tattoo shop in San Francisco that was selling it, and carted my prize away.

And it’s basically sat there sad and lonely since I got it, primarily because I’ve been focused on Autumn Splendor.  It might actually have been useful for Autumn Splendor, but being under deadline, I didn’t have time to learn how to use it.  So now it’s time to remedy that, pull it out from under the sewing table, and learn how to use it.  Play time!

At the same time, of  course, I might as well learn how to mix up acrylic paints from scratch.  I have the liquid pigment concentrates from ProChem, and acrylic medium to mix them with; Mike also has some wonderful pigments from Sinopia, which I could try as well.  I could have a lot of fun with acrylic paint and a couple of Thermofax screens…

…Of course, there’s also possibilities with thickened dye.  Or discharge paste.  Or…um, actually, rather a lot of “or”.  Wild possibilities, y’know?

And since I have no Major Projects on hand, I think I’m going to spend at least one day playing with surface design techniques.  It will be outdoors, messy, and fun!

An idea I am percolating: order a dozen T-shirts from Dharma Trading Co (which is having a sale on top of their already rock-bottom prices!) and go nuts with surface design.  My T-shirt collection is gradually getting threadbare, so it would be handy to have more clothes to wear; and at only $2.69 apiece, that’s even cheaper than a thrift store!  I can work less expensively on T-shirts than on any woven fabric, and I might even get something wearable as a result!

Of course working on T-shirts isn’t the same as working on woven fabric (knitted fabric behaves differently), but it would be a fun way to play with surface design while producing something possibly useful.  I rather think I’ll do it.

And….drum roll please….all our contingencies on the house have CLEARED!  The inspections all came out fine, and we got the loan approval this morning.  The tenant still needs time to move out, but that’s IT!  Escrow is scheduled to close on May 4.