A Day In The Life #5 - Printing Silk Scarfs

My plan for today was to go to college this morning to cut out my holographic heat transfer material for my big scarf as I need to do this first before I can start sewing on my needle felting's. When I got to college the print room was free and I was able to print which is a bonus as I want to get everything printed as soon as possible then I can concentrate on other things such as my needle feltings for my scarf and for in my petri dishes and also for my rings and earings which came today!! So excited about that!!

Today I printed two small scarf's, one silk and one muslin, using very different colour's. The first one was my silk scarf. I started off by masking taping the silk down to the print table which I had previously cleaned and dried. 

The first colour I printed was a turquoise and blue colour and after I printed it, it looked like this.

After I had printed blue I washed my screen and squeegee and put them to dry, I got out my second screen and put some clean gloves on and got printing, This time I printed a bright pink colour.

I really like how this one looked after the second screen but I was struggling to think of what colour to use on my final screen. I decided to use the silver pigment, Although I had not used this before or sampled it I thought it would look good so I went ahead and used it.

The end product looks really amazing the silver pigment gives such a good finished look and I am so glad I used it!! I washed my screen and squeegee and put them to dry and took the fabric I just printed into the classroom to dry, I then washed and dried the table.

The next scarf I printed was one I dyed, pressed and washed yesterday which is the orange and yellow muslin one aswell as an off cut from my big scarf which I had dyed a few days before. I started off by masking taping the fabric's to the table, I then got my colour's and first screen ready and started printing!! The first colour I used for these fabrics was a coral/orange pigment I mixed myself. 

Leaving my pigment to dry on the fabric I took my screen and squeegee in the wash room to clean and then placed my screen in the drying cupboard. When it was time to do the next screen I went for a bright pink and hoped it would look alright.

You can not really tell on the picture above but the out come of the second screen looked really good and bright. The pink and orange really complimented each other on the background colour of my fabric. I next printed a purple pigment after I had washed and put my screen to dry and got my last screen out. 

I really liked the outcome of this scarf, perfect for summer! When I took it off the table and into the class room to dry, The colours look really beautiful when the fabric floats! I am so happy I got to print today as printing a little every chance I can get makes my time management better and means I can focus on my needle felting.

The jewelry making earings and rings I ordered came today and so did my petri dishes for my exhibition. I was so happy when they came as that means I can focus on doing them and I now know the sizes so I can needle felt for them now. 

I am really happy with the work I have completed today. My plan for tomorrow is to maybe go into college (Its my day off) to use the heat press if not then I shall be spending the full day doing some needle felting so I can use the heat press on Friday at college and also use the hot glue gun for my rings and earings.

I really hope you enjoyed my blog post and if you have any ideas for my exhibition or any feedback please feel free to get in contact with me, You can see how to find me on my about me page or just leave a comment on here. 

Thankyou for reading. Come back tomorrow!!

A Day In The Life - #3

Today's day in the life blog post consists of me dying up fabric, washing and pressing my fabric, Helping out my friend print onto her fabric and needle felting so keep reading if you want to see and read in more detail what I did.
Up and out early this Monday morning, 9AM start at college, I started off this morning by dying the fabric that was the off cuts from my big exhibition scarf, as they are different sizes they shall just be little bits of fabric for headscarfs or what ever people would want them to be, waste not want not, I'm not one to chuck fabric out. 

This length of fabric in the picture above is one of the off cuts from my previous pieces of fabric, I found this wasent long enough for a scarf so I dyed it some bright colour's to use maybe as a headscarf. After I had dyed this and put it to dry, The colour's left behind on the printing table were so so amazing...

I decided to use another piece of cut off fabric to lay on top of this dye, To see how the fabric would pick up the colours and see what it would look like.

After just one press on the dye this is what the fabric looked like, I really think it looks really good, I put this fabric to one side and used it after I had dyed some fabric, each time I would lay this fabric on the left over dye on the print table. After I was happy with the outcome I pressed and washed it and used it as a headscarf for my own personal use as it was not suitable for anything else.

Excuse the mirror selfie, the apron and the sweaty face but this is what the final outcome of my improvised head scarf looked like, I am going to keep this for my self as I would make it neater and longer if I was to sell it but I personally like it how it is.

After I had cleaned up my space on the table I had a think of what I could dye up next and decided to go with silk scarfs, As I will be selling some scarfs some people will not want crazy wacky colours therefore I shall print some on just white backgrounds and some on block colour backgrounds. After cutting my silk scarfs out I filled 2 buckets with water and measured out some procian dye mixing them to make lighter or darker shades and testing the colours with little silk swatches. I left my silk in the buckets (each had their own bucket as they are different colours) and left them in there untill the end of the day when Kathryn will take them out and place them on the table to dry over night. 

After I had done all this I helped my friend Thea who's blog you can find here. To print one of her fabrics up. I have never used the registration bar to screen print, tomorrow I shall be using it to print my own fabric up. Today I used it for the first time to help Thea print her fabric up and I was so amazed at how easy and quick it is, It will really help me with time management to get my final pieces printed before the exhibition. Here are a few pictures of me and Thea printing her fabric up...

After we had finished printing this fabric up I still had an hour left of college, I decided to dye up one more piece of fabric, Muslin this time, Using orange,Yellow and Pink colour's. 

This was really simple to do, I just wet my fabric by painting on water then splatted the dye on the fabric with paint brushes. It leaves such a lovely effect when the fabric is lifted off the table. After doing this I then pressed and washed all my fabric I had dyed that day. Early this morning I also pressed and washed my big exhibition scarf by using the heat press then putting it on a quick rinse in the washing machine. 

When I got home I decided to do some needle felting as Iv still a lot to do and I figured an hour or so a day will make it easier than letting it all build up. I did a few more bacterial petri dish needle felts and created some little needle felts which I would describe to look like looking down a microscope, These shall be attached to plain rings by the hot glue gun to sell in my exhibition, I am still trying to perfect these as I shall be making a lot of them for my exhibition. Here are a few photo's from today's needle felting session.

The needle feltings which are to sew onto my scarf I am not creating them as detailed and creative as the first ones I did as they will not be shown close up and I am trying to manage my time well, Although the ones which will be in the petri dishes are really beautiful to look at.

Tomorrow's blog post will hopefully be showing you how I printed up my big exhibition scarf as well as the fabric I have dyed today. And some more needle felting. So keep your eyes peeled!!

Thankyou all for reading! Come back tomorrow x

Print Room Fun!!

After spending my morning organising and adding to my unit 10 folder I then spent the afternoon doing some more printing sample's to add to my tech file experimenting with different colours and fabric's. Firstly I had a chat with the instructor Kathryn about my exhibition and my final piece's, My original plan was to have a big scarf as my main exhibition piece, This will be a scarf not to be worn but just for show. I would also have 3 little wearable scarfs all the same colours which I could sell. We now came up with a new plan which is to do the same but the main scarf bigger (the whole length of the printing table 4.5m x 1.5m) and to do many techniques on it such as sewing needle felting's onto it aswell as other techniques. I will also create as many other scarfs as I can using different colour's and materials so there are more choices for if people would like to buy them. On to printing...

Firstly I bought some fabric just at A4 size as it is just to experiment with colours to see how the colours and the fabrics react and see what colour pigments look good on top of procian dyes I've not yet used in this project.

After I bought my fabric which is a mix of habotai silk light, cotton and white muslin I then mixed some procian dyes in cups to use to make my backgrounds. In my previous printing room blog post you can see I use bigger tubs to put my diluted procian dyes in but this time I used smaller cups with the procian dyes still diluted. I also used a bigger tub and filled this with water to place my sample in before dying it as I like the bled and smudge affect it gives when adding the dye to a wet surface, This looks differently on different material.

I mixed some different colours to which I used for my last batch of samples as I wanted to experiment and see which would look good as I have planned to produce a few different scarfs in different colours using different fabrics. My technique to dye the backgrounds for these samples were to soak the sample in water and rinse it out then place on a piece of news print making sure it is flat. I then use 1 brush for each colour and choosing which every colour I want I splat the colour onto the fabric and then it bled and smudged, Doing this many times with different colours untill I got the effect I liked. I then put it on the drying rack to dry.

 I did not take many pictures of dyeing the backgrounds of my samples but you can see them clearly in the picture's I have took during my time printing on top of these samples.
After the samples had dried (all 8 of them), I did some yellow and orange based and some bright pink and blue based, I started to print on them. Now this is a two man job as my screens are so big so I had some help with this. 

Using different colours with my screens really got me excited to create my scarfs as there are so many different colours I could combine and I think I have added my style to this project really perfectly. Because of time management I did not take as many pictures as I could have as I was very busy in the print room as the final day to hand in all my work is Friday. I will not be handing in my final pieces as I have not started them yet but I have time before my exhibition to do these as they are not to be rushed. My plan is to get all my sampling out of the way in the next 2 days as everything I want to put on my final pieces have to be sampled so I shall be a very busy bee. 

I have found using bigger screens so much more easier and gave me an idea of what industry is really like, Although carrying and washing my screens has been hard and printing is a two man job it has been easier in the way that I can do many samples at once and for my final pieces it will not take me too long to print. 

Above are pictures of the pigments I used today to print with...

Reddy Pink - Scarlet pigment and Brill red.

Coral Pink - Scarlet Pigment and Orange

Lime - Yellow and Green Pigment

All these colours are really bright!!

Here are a few pictures of the final outcomes from the print room today...

I am so happy with the outcome's of todays print room fun! I am really happy with my project so far and I think I have shown my skills really well and I hope my exhibition reflects me well. I now need to do some more samples with different and unique things for my exhibition piece scarf as they have to be in on Friday.

I really hope you enjoyed reading about my time in the print room and I am so happy everything is coming along so well!!!

Thankyou for reading and if you have any questions or would like to request to buy a scarf that I shall be making then please get intouch!