handprinted thursday::hand printed type

eep, sorry, this one is coming in a bit late! only two days to go now until the handprinted swap sign up deadline (i'll keep sign ups open until june 1st is officially over everywhere in the world, just to be fair) and today i wanted to share some amazing examples of hand printed type. as a former graphic designer and typography nerd, i'm always drawn to type, combine it with ink and fabric and it's pretty hard to go wrong.

{screenprinted cushion cover by Pony Rider}

{screenprinted pouches by Unni Strand}

{stenciled cushion cover by Wit & Whistle}

{potato prints by Dietlind Wolf (my styling idol)}

{screen printed fabric by Cloth}

{screen printed fabric by Spin Spin}

last day for free shipping

the introductory offer of free worldwide shipping on the diy oobee kits ends today...



i only have a couple of each of these fabrics left and will be printing all new designs next month so if you love these colours and patterns in soft cotton corduroy, snap one up!

handprinted wednesday::eclectic stamping materials II

three days to go until swap deadline!! to inspire you just that little bit extra, here are more amazing designs made with different stamping materials - it just goes to show, stretching your imagination goes a long way when printing by hand.

(ps. these all link to tutorials!)

{homemade stamps by Judi Hurwitt}

{apple prints by kayte terry}

{stencil cut from acetate by Jezze Prints}

handprinted tuesday::eclectic stamping materials I

with only four days to go until swap deadline, i thought i'd post some of my favourite hand printed finds every day this week. today shows gorgeous dot designs made with some surprising materials...

{dots printed with a potato by Nancy Straughan}

{dots printed with a Q-tip by A Beautiful Mess}

{dots printed with a pencil eraser by Hilary Lang}

{dots printed with a toothpaste tube cap by Poindextr}

{dots printed with sweet potato and carrots by me}

handprinted monday::block printing

just like last time, i thought i'd mark down the last five days of swap sign ups by focusing on a different element of handprinting each day, a little bit of inspiration and encouragement. today is all about block printing, that is carving your design out of lino, wood or eraser-like carving material and then using it as a stamp.

{hand carved wooden block print by Maria Joao}

{woodcuts on linen by Jeanne McGee}

{hand carved lino cut on fabric by Thought & Found}

{hand carved wood blocks on paper by Alex Michardi}

{hand carved stamps on paper by hier houd ik van}

::more carved stamp inspiration::
carve your stamp group on flickr
stamp your art out group on flickr
hand carved stamps board on pinterest

::resources::
hand carved stamp tutorial on gennine's art blog
diy hand carved stamp tutorial by teal & tea

i found plenty of information on how to carve the stamps and have included the best two above but i wasn't able to find any really good tutorials on using the stamps to print on fabric so i will write up something myself next week - perfect excuse to carve some new stamps, i say!

{updated}
jesse of jezze prints has alerted me to the WEALTH of information in her tutorials section. i'll be adding a few of her other tutorials to future posts but here are links to her excellent fabric printing tutorial series:
Jezze Prints: fabric printing I
Jezze Prints: fabric printing II
Jezze Prints: fabric printing III

this is pretty much the same way i do block printing, except that i use a foam brush to dab the paint onto my blocks rather than a roller. i just found i could get the paint a bit more "tacky" this way and end up with slightly more consistent prints (something that jesse doesn't seem to have a problem with, all of her printing always looks amazing!)

Bloggers’ Quilt Festival :: Spring 2012

nothing like getting in at the last minute. i'm so out of the loop with the current quilting scene (shameful, really, considering i print quilting fabric...) that i only heard about this edition of the bloggers' quilt festival yesterday. i had a quick scan through my photos and realized i hadn't shown my latest quilt in it's finished form so cajoled my good pal emily into standing out in the melbourne chill this morning to grab a full snap while our children ran around like wild things.



this quilt is made from a collection of my handprinted cloth, linen, cotton and linen/cotton blends. it's pretty special to me as it contains many of my first experiments with hand printing from last year, prints made from hand carved stamps that later became the screens that i use to print fabric today.





every piece of fabric in this quilt was printed by my hands and every bit of colour created around my whims (oh how i love to mix ink!). the backing is a soft, pale blue with a scattering of large white dots up one side (my many moons print), the binding my stormy weather clouds in alabaster white on pale grey. the piecing was completely improvisational, just fitting pieces together by size, one by one, until a quilt top formed, my favourite way to piece. and my favourite quilting method, machine stitched straight lines, not too perfectly placed, just the right amount of organic movement. all in all, it's a good one, i think : )

{if you've come here for the first time via the quilt festival - hello! thanks for stopping by! i hope you like what you see and will have a further poke around these hallowed halls of fabric and sewing, printing and quilts, kids and hijinks. and if you're keen to try a bit of fabric printing yourself, check out the swap i'm hosting, handprinted: a fabric swap II}

new fabric and ink colours

stormy weather in alabaster on soft pink quilting cotton



seedpods in overcast on bone quilting cotton


stormy weather in alabaster on soft blue quilting cotton


confetti in pale grey on white quilting cotton


quill in alabaster on soft pink quilting cotton

all now available in my shop!

maze & vale at home

mae and soph were horsing around on the sofa the other day when i realized there was a whole lot of my work going on in the scene.



drop cloths from my printing table framed in old, hardwood screen printing frames (bought for 5 bucks a piece from a rather excellent garage sale at estelle's), mae in her handmade, linen/cotton skirt printed with black many moons and soph in a hand-me-down long sleeve tee that i printed with seedpods in mustard. it makes me so happy to add these little bits of myself to our every day : )

screen printing with a cut paper stencil :: tutorial

want to learn the easy peasiest way to screen print ever? if you want to join in on the handprinted fabric swap and explore screen printing but are worried about how you're going to get a screen made, stop the worry, you can create your own design at home with the most basic of supplies. here we go...

::supply list::

screen printing frame (make your own at home or buy one at almost any art/craft supply shop)
paper in a similar size to your frame (basic printer paper is perfect for smaller frames or cut a piece from a roll for bigger frames)
cotton or linen fabric
cutting matt or piece of cardboard
utility knife/xacto knife/box cutter (whatever you want to call it)
squeegee
ink
spoon




okay, got all your stuff? now you're going to sketch out your design on the paper and then trim it out with the knife (or just go all crazy and start cutting like i did), using the cutting matt or cardboard underneath to protect your work surface. you could also work up your design on the computer (in Illustrator or another drawing program) and print it out, all ready for cutting. your design does have some limitations because you can't have shapes inside of shapes (you know?) but this doesn't mean it has to be super simple like the diamonds i have done. check out the work of paper cutting artists heather moore and rob ryan and you'll see what i mean (to a rather extreme degree!).



here is my finished design and my homemade screen, ready to print! ignore the marks on my screen, i was going to paint a big dot on it with screen filler and changed my mind.



now grab your fabric (i used a super fine pinwale cotton corduroy) and position the paper where you would like the design to print. lay your screen on top, making sure that the paper is covering all open mesh around the edges.





spoon your ink onto the screen and using fairly firm pressure, draw the squeegee across the screen. lift your screen up and voila! your design is nicely printed on the fabric and the ink magically adheres the paper to the screen, meaning that you can move the screen around and make multiple prints. when you are finished printing, simply peel the paper away from the screen, chuck it in the garbage and rinse your screen out in the sink or outside with a hose. dry it off and it's ready to print again with a new stencil!

you can usually make around 10 - 15 prints this way before the paper starts to get too soggy so it's perfect for small things like t-shirts, pillowcases or say, a meter of fabric for your swap buddies? it's also a great way to test designs before going to the cost and/or trouble of getting a permanent screen made. i've enjoyed using it to muck around with overprinting lately and don't plan to stop any time soon - i hope you guys get the same enjoyment out of this super easy printing method.



three colour overprinted cotton corduroy using two standard emulsion screens and the cut paper diamond stencil shown above.


four colour overprinted linen tea towel using two standard emulsion screens, one screen painted with screen filler and a cut paper lines stencil.

handprinted: a fabric swap II

what do you think, folks? anyone up for some more handprinting swap fun??

::the gist::

you'll be sending one printed fat quarter to each of four assigned swap buddies and receiving four printed fat quarters from these same folk. whether you want to print one whole meter (yard) and chop it into quarters or you want to print four separate 50cm x 50cm (18inch x 20inch) pieces is up to you. designs must be your own and hand printed using whatever technique you want to play with. please print on natural fibers - cotton, linen, hemp or a blend of these - and be sure you use ink/paint designed for fabric. you will be sent your swap mates' preferred colours but, in the end, ink colours and design are entirely of your own choosing.

::sign up::

send the following information to handprintedfabricswap@gmail.com
name:
postal address:
website/blog:
preferred colours:

signups will be open until friday, june 1st. your swap group details will be sent to you by sunday, june 3rd and the deadline to send your fabric is monday, june 25th, giving you three whole weeks to play around with techniques. this swap is open to anyone, anywhere in the world, which means if you sign up, you have to be willing to ship fabric overseas (since we'll only be sending fat quarters, you should be able to sandwich your fabric between two pieces of card and send it in a C4 (8.5 x 11inch) envelope to keep postage costs down).

::resources::
my leaf printing tutorial

hand carved stamp tutorial
stencil and potato printing
foam stamping tutorial
lino stamping tutorial
homemade stamps turorial
stamp carving tutorial
contact paper printing tutorial
screen printing at home
screen printing tutorial
screen printing using drawing fluid
screen printing photo emulsion tutorial
my create your own screen tutorial

::inspiration::
my handprinted board on pinterest
handprinted: fabric group on flickr
printing by hand group on flickr


there are a ton of books on every kind of fabric printing you can imagine but one i can recommend wholeheartedly is lena corwin's Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils, and Silk Screens.  i'll be posting about tutorials, techniques and hopefully a few inspirational interviews over the course of the swap to keep you motivated but please feel free to add links to any other resources in the comments, there is so much great information out there! once the mailing deadline has past, i'll be posting ideas of what to make with your fancy handprinted fat quarters : )

here's a little sidebar button if you want to show off that you are taking part:

and please feel free to use the large image above to blog about the swap, the more the merrier!


::sign ups are now officially closed and all groups are full!! looking forward to sharing what comes out of the swap in the coming weeks, thanks everyone for joining in::

brrrr.

this has been one cold and wet autumn (with very small patches of lovely scattered throughout) and i am filled with dread that we are still two weeks away from the official start of aussie winter. i've been trying to think of good things about this weather but all i've managed so far is: not as many spiders and very few flies. not exactly uplifting so i thought i'd better bring around some winter joy in the form of:


new boots (from here),


new shoes (new from ebay),


new scarf ($5 from st vinnies).

teamed with some warm cozy knits, these three little treats to myself might just get me through the winter. my husband's new birthday ipad may help, too.

also, happy late mother's day! we had a super quiet day, cleaning and organising the house, just what i requested. the crummy weather meant we didn't even attempt to get my mother's day photo on the day this year but i'm hoping for some clearer skies this weekend, i refuse to break the tradition!

diy skirt kits

so hot on the heels of the diy oobee kit, here is the diy skirt kit! and you're thinking, how DOES she do it?? well, in reality these have been in my etsy shop since february and i somehow forgot to blog about them so they've just been sitting there very quietly. but then last week someone ordered one! and she sent me super cute photos and great feedback on the kit and i thought, hmmm, these skirts are pretty darn cute, maybe i should actually let the world know that they exist. the kit comes with your choice of handprinted fabric combination for skirt and waistband and a handy instruction sheet that walks you through the very simple steps to complete it. it's suitable for beginners and shows you how to customize the fit for ages one through six.





i currently have three fabric options available:

1:: bone coloured 100% cotton skirt printed with pale bubblegum pink many moon dots and grey confetti with grey seedpods printed on grey 100% cotton for the waistband

2:: pink shot cotton (100% cotton) skirt printed with white quill feathers and almost black confetti printed on white 55% linen/45% cotton for the waistband

3:: natural 55% linen/45% cotton skirt printed with black many moon dots and pale pink quill feathers and black quill feathers printed on dark grey 100% cotton for the waistband.

and i'm working on some pinwale corduroy versions to release next month, perfect for an aussie winter skirt. here's mae rocking her fabric combo number 1 version when it was still lovely and warm outside:



and here is the gorgeous example of the fabric combo number 2 option that nicole created and so graciously allowed me to show here:

isn't this photo the cutest?? and it must be said, this skirt is all the more impressive because it was nicole's first solo sewing project EVER. i am blown away, she's a total natural!