Printing Fabric (3)

Generally printmakers 'pull proofs' before launching into the final print run. It's a good idea to test your print on scrap fabric or paper to see if you like the look of it, because more cutting might be required. But this one's fairly predictable...

Pick the inked block up by the edges, turn it over and plop it onto the fabric. (Try not to get ink on your fingers like I've done). If you're doing a rigid repeat or using more than one colour, you'll probably need to mark out some positions using a water-soluble pen. Here, I'm just winging it.

(The fabric is zig-zagged around all the cut edges because I wash everything before printing - new fabric to remove sizing that might interfere with ink take-up, and old fabric because you never know where it's been.)


Apply pressure. Just lean on the block if it's small enough, or use a roller if it's bigger than your hand. Hold the block in place with your other hand for the roller method (tricky if you're taking pictures as well).


Lift the block straight off so you don't smudge the print.

And then just keep going....

The paint should dry to the touch quickly, as it's only a thin layer. The next step is to cure the fabric so that it's washable. Instructions should come with the fabric paint, or at least be on the manufacturer's website, but just in case: most fabric paints require heat setting. Apparently this can be done in a tumble drier, but the safest way is to iron the print from the back on the highest setting your iron has. Work slowly across the fabric, stopping just short of scorching it. You might see steam coming off - that means it's working.

Fabric can also be cured in the oven. Set the oven to 180 C (356 F) and fold the fabric with the printed surface on the inside. When the oven is hot, turn it off, place the fabric on a baking tray, stick it in the oven, and walk away. 5 minutes is supposed to be sufficient; I'm more comfortable with 10. I'm also paranoid, so I give the fabric a quick once-over with an iron as well, just to be sure.

If you've marked positions with a pen, dunk the fabric in water for a few moments to remove the marks. You'll be able to check if the paint has cured properly, too, because uncured paint goes slimy in water.

Printing Fabric (2)

I print on my kitchen table, which has a sheet of metal nailed to it, making it very easy to clean. If you're not lucky enough to have the same thing, a sheet of plastic or several layers of newsprint or brown paper will do the trick. Apart from needing a clean, flat surface to work on, fabric paint often penetrates the fabric you're printing on, so it's best to protect any surfaces that could be affected.

My current set-up, clockwise from the top left: cheap toilet paper for cleaning up; lino blocks; piece of card that serves a registration device for two-colour prints; fabric paint; ordinary printing roller; water-soluble pens for marking positions; foam rollers; cork for printing dots; glass slab for paint; spatula/knife-type thing; washed and ironed fabric.


Paint scooped onto one end of the glass (a spoon would do as well). It's good to get into the habit of cleaning everything you use as you go - dry paint is harder to remove, and you want to avoid contaminating paint colours. It's such a habit for me that I cleaned the knife without thinking, before taking the photo... printing is pretty much the only time I manage to be tidy.


Rolling the paint out with the foam roller. These rollers are sold at hardware shops, for painting with enamel paint. Fabric paint is softer and more slippery than the ink normally used for lino printing; an ordinary roller just skids across the glass without picking up any paint. Roll lightly, and keep lifting the roller to get the paint spread all the way around it. Experiment a bit until you have a feel for the kind of coverage you need. If you're used to lino ink, you'll know the sound the ink makes when you have just too much on the glass - that's what you want here. Think of car tyres on a wet road.

Oh, and the glass slab is a bathroom shelf. You can use any flat, non-porous surface that's big enough. Plates, trays, mirrors....

Roll the ink lightly onto the block. In the best tradition of TV chefs, 'this is one I prepared earlier', not the block from the last post. I hadn't finished cutting it and I wanted to print!


Block inked. Make sure that it's all covered; looking at it from an angle helps you see the shine of wet paint. You'll also be able to see if you've inked any bits that aren't meant to print. Wipe those clean with some toilet paper (and check the block again in case you've wiped a printing part). I've trimmed this block pretty close to the edges of the design to make it easier to ink.

Printing Fabric (1)

This isn't the only way to do things, but it's how I've been printing.

First I draw the design. If it's simple I work straight onto the linoleum, but if it's fairly symmetrical it's useful to draw it on tracing paper so you can check that both sides are the same. If it's a complex design you'll probably want to work it out on paper first anyway, then trace it to get clean lines to work with. If it's something that reads better in a particular direction (like lettering) it will need to be reversed, as the print will be in reverse.


Next I trace it onto the lino block using carbon paper, and then go over the lines with ink. If you have a really steady hand you could probably skip the ink stage, but it's useful to make sure your lines are accurate, and to prevent smudging while you're cutting.

For fabric printing I've found that thicker lino is easier to print with; about 5mm thick is great.



For some reason I prefer to use woodcut tools for cutting lino, and I find a V-gouge the most useful. I think they're easier to sharpen than lino tools; but, depending on the kind of mark you want to make, you could use anything from an ice pick to a craft knife.


I cut all the outlines first, and then clear out the bigger areas using U-gouges of different sizes. For fabric printing you'll need to cut deeper than for paper printing, because the lino block is pressed onto the print surface, rather than the other way around. I tend to cut almost down to the backing (another reason thicker lino is better).

The thick lino is often harder than the thinner kind. It's important to keep lino warm when cutting, so that it stays fairly soft. This minimizes the risk of the tools slipping and ruining your block or your fingers. In summer it's not too much of a problem, but in winter you'll need to warm the lino every now and again as you work on it. The simplest way to do this is to work on two blocks at once: sit on the one you're not working on. As soon as the working block starts getting cold, swap it for the one you're sitting on.

*Update: I no longer use traditional linoleum, rather a plastic one. Traditional linoleum doesn't stand up to repeated printing with water-based ink.

Sparse

Blogging's likely to be a bit sparse and unpredictable around here for a while; I have to be in and out of town, possibly at short notice, for a while (and I have tons of work to catch up). I'm very behind with emails, too, so if I owe you a mail or a comment, please don't think I'm being rude... I'll get there eventually.

New Patterns

Some new prints I did over the weekend. I really could spend all my time doing this!

I'll be away for the rest of the week, but when I get back I'll be making things from these fabrics

Squee!!!

Audrey made the front page of Etsy. (Thanks, Heather, for letting me know).

Paperiaarre

A brand new blog from Finland, Paperiaarre. I'm a sucker for a good book, and these handmade books are among the most beautiful I've seen. There are more examples of Kaija's work on her blog - go look!

Things my mother made: part 2

This is a shirt my sister and I have to take turns wearing, because my mother only made one. It's about 40 years old, made on a machine that could only do straight stitching, and painted with Virginia O'Grady fabric paint. (I can't even find a link for that; no idea if the product even exists anymore. The paint is in tiny metal tubes, and you paint directly onto the fabric with the tube, squeezing the paint out as you go. It creates a slightly raised effect, and, sadly, is starting to flake a bit.)

Things my mother made: part 1

My mom recently made a counting book for her new granddaughter. Each page has a challenging fastener to master as well - velcro, buttons, zips, laces.... should keep the little one busy for a while (once she gets over simply drooling on the book).

Old family photos printed onto fabric give some light relief from the complexities of arithmetic and hand-eye coordination.

The rest of the pages are here.

Knitting Tech

Hmm... seems I was in a bit of a mood yesterday. It's always a bad sign when I start using long words and contorted sentences. I really need to find time to get back to printing!

In the meantime, here's something else that makes my little heart glow with pleasure: TECHknitting! (via Ysolda) Everything you ever needed to know about knitting, and lots of things you had no idea you needed to know. Very technical, very clear, very geeky - brilliant.

Clean Dishes

I've been following the recent action (most of it's in the comments) on Jane Brocket's yarnstorm blog with interest. She's just published a book called The Gentle Art of Domesticity, based partly on the content of her blog. Yarnstorm is great; when I found it I bookmarked it immediately, and read through the entire archive. It's about knitting, sewing, baking, gardening, reading, and she takes beautiful photographs. I'm sure the book is even more of a pleasure to read.

The Gentle Art of Domesticity has received some negative criticism. It seems that celebrating the 'domestic arts' can be seen as an attack on feminism, a call for women (only women!) to get back into the kitchen and to stay there, or even as a symptom of a willfully technophobic and Victorian-scented eccentricity.

That's a photo of my dish washing kit up there. I made it myself. Grated Sunlight soap and water, diluted for washing dishes. Spirit vinegar, for adding to the rinse water. Bicarb, for scrubbing, because it will clean anything and everything. A knitted string dishcloth, which doesn't get ratty, and which I throw in with the laundry every few days. A pile of newspapers for wiping very greasy pots and dishes before washing. No plastic bottles (except for the vinegar, but if you buy it in sufficient quantities, you're still using less plastic.) No rotting disposable sponges or scrubbers. No allergies. Cheap, efficient, pretty, environmentally friendly. And you can clean the bathroom with this stuff too. *

Making things isn't about rejecting the 21st century or wanting to live in some dream world of embroidered nightgowns and smelling salts. It's about knowing how things work, knowing how things are made, being able to fix them when they're broken. It's about knowing what goes into your food; about being able to tell if clothes are well made before you spend your money on them; about making things you want rather than settling for something that's sort of okay, almost the right colour, and possibly the right fabric. It's about being able to change and improve things in your immediate environment.

I make no distinction between wiring a plug, building a table, or knitting a sock. They're all part of domesticity. Making things.


*Google 'homemade cleaners' to find recipes. There are tons.

Basket bag trial (and errors)

When I was growing up, some of the most interesting things in my mom's wardrobe were things she'd kept from when she was growing up. One item that fascinated me was a little drawstring bag with a basket at the bottom.

I took a bag of old clothes to the charity shop the other day, and discovered a great source for odd little baskets! So this is my first attempt at a basket bag. The print is a linocut of a jasmine leaf.

Too much thought (and not enough) went into the construction of the casing for the drawstring. I desperately wanted top-stitching on the outside, and the bag to be lined, and slits at the sides; so it's pretty thick and doesn't close tightly. But my mom's searching through boxes for her little bag to send to me. With that as an example, and the mistakes I made on this one, I should be able to figure out a better version.

Watching paint dry ...

Fascinating, huh? I'm know... I'm sorry.

I'm going away for the weekend, and have to get a whole lot of things done before then. None of these things, not one, is in the least bit photogenic. It's a sad state of affairs.

Pretty Puffs Not-So-Slouchy Hat

I can't remember where I first saw this hat, but it's popped up everywhere I've looked recently. Here's the pattern, from Crafty Pants! Here's a discussion on Craftster. Here's another version. Here's a crochet-along. Here's a whole bunch on Flickr.

It's really quick and easy to make. I didn't have any yarn thick enough, or a 6mm crochet hook, but Elle Pure New Wool DK and a 4mm hook worked well enough. With a thicker hook and yarn it would definitely be more slouchy. The nice thing about the pattern is that you can try it on as you go. I added a few rounds at the bottom, to compensate for the tighter gauge.

And I have this pattern to thank for finally knowing where to join crochet rounds to avoid a spiral seam.

Oh, and about the puff stitch description in the pattern: I found myself doing an extra step, pulling the yarn through all but the last 2 loops, then making a yarn over and pulling it through. Seemed to make them puffier, but I can't be sure. It's just the way I learned.

Bags! Shopping! Shopping bags!

Bags made from these fabrics are now in my shop.