For March my focus is switching to St. Patrick's Day. I carved a shamrock shaped printing block for several projects. I hand-mixed green inks and with gold printer's ink I have been working on wrapping paper in my basement workspace. Each sheet of wrapping paper is unique with decorative elements printed with bottle tops, mardi gras beads and anything I can find.
The other day I bought my first load of t-shirts in bulk. I didn't think the shirts would arrive on time for printing, heat treating, photographing and uploading to the website, so I bought additional single gray and green shirts for a St. Patrick's Day print run. I used my screen showing Alexandria's Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Masonic Memorial and a sailboat on the Potomac River. Once the Alexandria image was printed and dried I added hand-stamped shamrocks and decorations on some of the shirts.
My previous shopping bags had sold out so I printed new green and gold Alexandria-themed shopping bags for sale. Original art on a unique bag! Once the printing was done, I stepped outside for some March sunlight, and there was the box of new t-shirts! They will wait for the next printing.
Meanwhile I have learned about t-shirts. It turns out cotton-knit fabric was first used for outer wear, rather than underwear only, by Coco Chanel. Apparently the editor for Vogue Magazine acknowledged this epic change in people's clothing habits by making a snarky comment that Ms. Chanel should be satisfied! The term for cotton knit is "jersey" because it was produced on the British island called Jersey which is just off the northern coast of France.
For St. Patrick's Day I added several hand-painted greeting card designs to my card collection. They come in packs of five or singles and are blank on the inside. These ones have green envelopes. I will have my new green items at the markets, plus my new kids books this weekend. Thankfully the weather should be bright and sunny.