What to do with it?

You are always asking "What Can I do with it?" so here are two examples of what one member of the group did with some of their breakdown printed fabric.

These two stab bound books were created from pieces of the fabric we printed in September which had been backed with lightweight paper enabling them to be glued onto the cover boards.  They were given as a present to each of two people and one had nice watercolour paper in it so that it could be used as a sketchbook.

Whilst on the same London trip to deliver the books the same person met up with our former Chairman and they participated in a workshop which resulted in these lovely tealight lanterns.

I am sure you already know, but as a reminder this month's stitch is Pekinese Stitch.

Every Dog has his Day!

At last I got my chance to produce some cloth using the breakdown printing method ...

Washing day and all the pieces are rinsed, washed in synthrapol, rinsed again, spun and hung out to dry.  The large piece in the background is the dropcloth from the table which has some amazing areas on it, however, I think it might get put into soda ash again and re-used to build up on what is already there.

Above is the second screen I printed and towards the end I decided to add some Fire Engine Red to the mix.  A little of the detail below where you can clearly see images made from plastic garden netting, part of a plastic meat tray, a wooden coffee stirrer and good old bubble wrap.

Below is the print from my first screen, which had dribbles of thickened dye paste on it into which I have pressed various items to add more texture.  I think I used turquoise and antique gold on top of the black on the screen.  It is hard to remember as you do get a bit engrossed once you start to print.

Finally, this is a close up of one of the sections of the drop cloth, which arose from a screen that had been dribbled - but not by me.

The colours do become slightly duller once washed, so perhaps I need to add more Procion dye powder when making the thickened dye paste.

Yet more Surprises!!

Today I spent the afternoon doing some more breakdown printing with one of the Running Stitchers and we had fun.  One thing we have found out is that it is better to print onto a finer fabric.

The bonus was that she also brought her washed pieces of fabric over with her so I managed to take some photographs.

This was the piece that had ferns embedded in the dye

Dye added to the screen using the dribble method

Some closer detail to give an idea of the wonderful effects that just happen

I also found a couple of photos I had taken of the flour resist before it was washed off

More breakdown printing

Today I had chance to see one of the pieces of fabric that was produced last week and was very impressed.  There are some beautiful images on it and the colours are surprising too.  I think we basically used black, turquoise, emerald green and golden yellow.  I can't wait to see some more of the results.

Breakdown Printing

Not sure who was having the breakdown - me or the screen.  No, to be fair, it was an amazing experience and I am hoping to have another try very soon.  Below is one of the pieces of fabric produced by a member of the group.  It has to be 'batched' and washed yet so it will be interesting to see what it looks like after that.  Pretty different I imagine.

We had pre-prepared 6 screens and I somehow managed to get through most of the morning before I realised that I should have taken some photographs.  It was too late by then as the fabric that had been done was rolled up in plastic sheeting 'batching'.

We also prepared some flour resist pieces of fabric and used the leftover thickened Procion dye to colour them.  Hopefully next month some of the pieces will be brought along to show off.

On another note, one of our members had a nasty fall a while back and, whilst she has been recuperating, she has produced a rather wonderful piece of work from all the bits and pieces she had accummulated over the years.

Screens for Breakdown Printing

I have managed to prepare two screens ready for Wednesday ...

This is the first one, which is A4 in size, has various items stuck into the thickened dye paste and is now slowly drying.  The thickened dye paste is black and I am hoping it will give some other lovely variations in colour once it mixes with the thickened dye paste used for printing onto fabric.

I have used the drip and run method on the smaller square screen in three colours: black, emerald and golden yellow.