Most of yesterday was spent playing with my new stencils and different kinds of paint, both with and without textile medium.  I used a previously worked piece of fabric that I just haven't yet been able to find a use for.  It was worked with a variety of media, and could provide a good surface for finding out how the stencils took the different paints and surfaces.  I was looking for the best paint for both coverage and transparency.

This is the best result I had, and clearly demonstrated -to me--how important value can be when working with fine stencils.

This again demonstrates how important value is in very fine stencils.  I have several ideas about how I might use this small stencil in future.

My hope, when I purchased the stencils was to explore how to actually use them, and how they might be used as fairly faint images in a mixed media piece.  Here, I also experimented with two different types of paint--acrylic plus textile medium on the left, and fabric paint on the right.

This just didn't work for me, and it's something I'll have to explore more in future.  It bothers me how willing I am to put the creative stuff aside.  I'm happier going back to more traditional work--my comfort zone.  This needs more thought, something I'm not looking forward to.

For now. I've put the paint and stencils away as I found a long armer for my two quilts.  She's reasonably local, the price is good, and she's available, although she can't promise to have them done by Christmas.  I assured her there was no way I need them done by Christmas.  She also comes well recommended.  So now I just need to cut and stitch the borders on Long Time Gone, and prepare backing and bindings for both.  I have the fabric and batting, it just needs to be cut to size.