The new studio arrangement looked pretty good back in July.  (See my post for July 2014.)  I had taken over at least half of the 2-car garage when we moved into our house in Taos.  It wasn't perfect, but it had a sink and a window.  The walls were finished out with dry wall and there was radiant floor heat.  I had set up storage and table work space and a work bench.  I prepared for my feature exhibit at La Veta Gallery and got merchandise ready for TAOSFOLK Popup Store.

Trouble didn't raise its fuzzy little head until the week before Christmas.  We drove the jeep down to Espanola for some routine maintenance.  If the rabbit that rode down the mountain under the hood of my car was not the one who chewed though a bunch of wiring under there, he was a close relative.  The guilty party (or his best friend) jumped out as soon as they popped open the hood in the service bay.  As so often happens, routine maintenance turned into an expensive repair.  

Obviously, the garage is the best place for our vehicles, at least through the winter months. There are thousands of rabbits in our neighborhood who would be happy to take the place of the one who moved to Espanola.  The decision was made quickly and we hurried to dismantle my one-time studio without exploding all kinds of junk into the house.

OK, I am certain I can figure out a creative solution for a work space.  

This has been fun!  Every now and then I like to get my fabric paints going just to enjoy what happens.  Now that most of my holiday "production" projects are finished I took a few days last week to paint.  It always seems to take a couple of yards of fat quarters to really get a feel for it again.  

This time I'm also digging into a large supply of vintage linens.  Most of these are damaged in some way, either stained or torn.  The fibers - worn and washed many times - are begging for color and a new life!  The piece pictured above was painted on a lovely linen dinner napkin with a rather open weave and a beautifully hand embroidered hem.

I like to work on wet fabric for washes and printing, letting the fabric  dry between color applications.  I've given the piece above a final pass with the little printing tool that makes the fine black lines.  It would be interesting to embellish this further with free motion machine quilting.

I hope to keep working on this until the end of the year.  I'll enjoy having a new pile of things to consider and use as I start in on some new projects in 2016.