Lulu Carter: spring printing

I have not printed fabric for probably twenty years. The fact that I still had silk screens and a squeedgie stored in the roof was beyond a miracle and let me tell you when the woman at the prininting store told me they hadnt used wood for screen frames for decades, well, she gave me a look. The fact that mum bought my screens at a garage sale back then so they were already 'old' failed to turn into words.

Anyway I digress.....

I had a crazy amount of fun doing this. When a fabric printing swap was discussed among these lovely ladies I meet regularly with, I was so excited. I immediately drew up my prints based on the theme "Spring" knowing it would be on linen tea towels and then I did nothing about it until this week. A little panic perhaps?

There was a spare for each person in cased you ballsed one up but I've managed to keep that one to try something else.

The paint- Ecotex. This will apparently last longer than the fabric its printed on as long as you heat set it properly. It washed really well-no difference in intensity so I guess all that time standing at the iron paid off.

Buy primary colours then you can mix whatever you fancy.

For the stencils I decided that tracing paper was ideal. Large enough to cover the area and using a craft blade to cut out your shapes works fine.

For stamping I used the sponge rolls from paint rollers. They have a hard plastic tube inside so you can actually push down and get a firmer print rather than all sponge which just squishes down on itself.