Tuesday 16th October - Screen Printing

This was the one workshop that I had been looking forward to the most. I had done screen printing previously, and I had really enjoyed it.

I had given Kim the drawing that I had done in textiles with the lines and patterns. The drawing had turned out really well. Kim gave us a quick demo, but when I started doing it for myself, I was disappointed at first - the image wasn't coming out clearly, and I didn't know why! Kim said it was because my drawing was very detailed and I had drawin it using very fine lines, they were easily blocked, and it needed cleaning continuously. When I started doing this, the prints came out a lot cleaner and crisper.

 

Printed onto wood

Also, I had dyed some background last night for the prints, using lots of different colours. I did one background where I used salt on the protein dye technique as it looks very effective.
I also printed onto a piece of wood - it gave a withered, old kind of effect.

 Backgrounds I dyed

In the afternoon, we were using the ancient sewing machines. They are very different to the one I have at home, and I barely know how to thread the needle with these machines!

We used something called vanishing fabric - I had never heard of it before - it's amazing. It looks and feels like a sheet of plastic, almost like a plastic wallet but slightly textured. When it gets wet, it disappears, and all you're left with is the thread that has been sewn into the fabric. You have to make sure to go over the design you want a few times to make sure that there are no loose ends, and all the thread is linked.
I drew my design out, and me being me, it was detailed and complicated. Danielle said it would take too long to do, and we were only doing this to see what it was like, as a technique. I wanted to do it all but I knew that I didn't have the time, so I just chose to do a section in the middle. I used blue thread on top and purple underneath. Because the fabric was so thin, when the needle was piercing through it, it was making holes, and the more I was trying to stop it, the more it was happening. I then tried to sew over the holes to fill them, and this worked to an extent, but then more holes kept on appearing, so I washed the fabric and watched it disappear. It became sticky. It's amazing how it just disappears like it was never there.