I am working on a stitched story piece about one of my favorite local marshes and my stencil Black Birds in Tree are the main focus in this new series. The marshes, Cooper's Marsh & Larson's Marsh, which is just a few miles east of Ames, Iowa, are surrounded by farmland.

Seta Color Fabric paint on cotton fabric, I painted this fabric using a salt technique sometime around 2004/05. The orange piece is a non-slip gripping pad that holds the fabric in place while I surface the fabric.

I should be able to get four smaller pieces out of the larger piece of fabric, the piece directly above this photo.

For the purple stenciled areas I'm using Galleria thick body paint as it is less inclined to bleed. I applied the paint using a stencil brush and very thin layers of paint building the image up onto the fabric, why yes my hand is sore now!

Finished, the stencil did stick to the fabric, where it came into contact with the wet paint that soon dried.

I have to admit this is my all time favorite stencil in my series! I will probably leave this particular piece of fabric as is for the moment and work on the other three pieces. I am toying with using my inverse stencil on one of the pieces, more to come!