lino cutting and fabric printing

At the end of February I came down with a horrible chest infection.  I'm still withdrawing from my anti-depressants.  The withdrawal is causing me to clench my teeth so hard that my jaw is agony.  I thought at first it was toothache but the dentist told me it's not.  Along with other ailments like headaches, earaches, feeling sick and dizzy, I think the withdrawal symptoms have lowered my natural immunity and so I caught an infection and it was pretty bad.  I was off work for a week.  

On the second Saturday we had booked a craft class at Locally Produced for You and I was determined to go.  It was another great workshop, unfortunately we don't have any more booked there but I hope she runs some more soon as it's a great workshop space and a lovely shop.

This class was lino cutting and printing on fabric.  The tutor was Anna from Fabritzia Design.  I bought a lino cutting tool at one of the craft shows a few years ago but still hadn't tried it so I was eager to go to this class.

Because I was still a bit ill, I didn't have much creativity in me (I didn't do a single second of craft the whole time I was off work, I was so ill that all I could do was lie down and watch TV and even that hurt!), but sitting watching the others carve their lino, I finally got some inspiration.  My mum had a shopping bag with a kind of splodge pattern on it, that became the stamp on the left.  Then the one on the right just popped into my head.  

The fabric I printed on was actually blue though it comes across as white/grey in this picture.  I used silver ink, light blue ink and a lovely navy ink to stamp.

I left it to try for a week (or more!) and now I just have to iron it to set the ink and I can sew with it.  I'm thinking of making a cushion cover and adding some embroidery and beading.  For the time being it will just sit in my craft room with my other WIPs!

I really enjoyed carving the lino and if I could just get a little bit of free time, I could carve some more!