Sew Special: Experimenting with Fabric Printing

Block printing - India

In my travels over the years, I have often admired (and frequently purchased) hand-printed fabric creations. I thought it would be fun to try and make my own fabric designs. For Christmas, Dick Blick Art Supplies was having a big sale and I finally decided to treat myself to some supplies.

This book is full of beautifully illustrated and practical instructions on 4-5 different printing methods.  Since I already have some experience with stenciling I decided to try block printing.

Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils, and Silk Screens

I printed a star pattern from a quilt design online and then added the side squares to make it so that it could repeat the pattern evenly. I traced it on regular printer paper with a soft lead pencil and then rubbed it off with a bone folder onto a MooCarve block. Then I used a lino carving tool to carve around my design.

 I rolled paint on it with a rubber brayer.

This was my very first attempt and I learned a lot. Here are some key take-aways:

• the lino carving tool and moo carve block were super easy to use
• mixing paint colors in a cup works great, so buying just some basic primary colors of opaque fabric paint is a good idea
• this process takes a lot of paint -- my 6 little jars are going to run out after only a couple more practice sessions
• the inking plate is essential -- I need to order one! I thought I could get away with just using a plastic placemat or tray, but they were horrible and I could not get the roller to coat evenly with them
• I should not have cut those right angles into my stamp. They made it tidy for the roller and easy to align with the previous stamp, but created weak spots -- the stamp started to tear at the corners and I am going to have to add some kind of wood backing if I want to keep using it.  

 I tried a row of yellow first, and then added some red to make the peachy orange color above. I could not get enough paint on the roller with the placemat method. It was worse than the tray! Hopefully next time will be better.

Practicing Block Printing