Saturday 1 May 2010

May and Potato Excitement






















Oh my, oh my....it's May already. If you are a dab hand at printing with stencils and screens and freezepaper, look another way. I got so excited when these pots came with the post.





















They are six pots of textile colour I ordered from the Scottish firm Stewart Gill. Now I must admit that I cannot for my life remember that I have EVER done any textile printing. Not even in kindergarten with a potato.
I have plenty of ideas how I would like to use these lovely colours: I have plans of making t-shirts for Elf Boy, I would like to have a couple of new pretty calico bags for shopping and I think printing a small border on white napkins would be nice too.
I have also another project underway, which I cannot discuss yet, as it is a present. It involves an amount of different fabrics and I thought that a really quick way of trying my hand with prints would be printing a small sample to use in the project. I chose the old potato print method as it is quick and easy.















 
And here is what I did in the first sampler (far too small for my project).
















The final pattern using the same potatoes:
















My inspiration was a seed in a pod and as you can see I have interpreted it with a poetic licence. It was first in my second attempt that I had a towel under the fabric to make the printing easier. The differences in strength of the colour was an intentional effect and I am just itching to do more now...
Edit: I suddenly remembered that I have done printing before! I made some pillowcases when I was in the 6th form for Christmas presents for the family and friends. I have actually seen them kicking around when visiting. I can now remember that I used the book plastic for making stencils. And I think I printed Mick Jagger on a pair of sloggies for my stepmum (Great fan of Rolling Stones)!

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