A Day In The Life #4 - Printing My Big Scarf

Today has been the big day!! I've finally printed up the main part of my exhibition which is my big scarf!! Keep reading if you want to know how I did it and see how it looked in stages.

To get started I washed down the printing table I was working on and dried it too. I then measured to where my screen would be once placed on the registration bar and laid my fabric in the correct place on the table so my fabric would be clear of 1 inch on each side so I can clean the ends up on the sewing machine at a later date. I used masking tape to tape my fabric down, making sure its straight and its pulled tightly. 

I then got my pigment's together, As I am recreating one of my samples I am using the same colour pigments I used on that sample.

ignore the back colour as I did not need this or use this for my exhibition scarf. 

Once I had my colour's sorted it was time to print, As my screen's and fabric are so large I had to have the help of kathryn to help me print my screens also because I had not used the registration bar before. First off I printed the pink pigment.

After I had printed this colour I was so excited because it was finally coming to life, I washed and put my screen to dry while this pink pigment was drying, I then got my next screen and got ready to print again this time in blue pigment, This will go over some of the pink at a slight angle to make a purple colour with a blue shadow and also just be blue in other places it is printed.

 I then used my third screen and printed the cells to my fabric and this is what the end product looked like.

I am so so so so excited and in love with the outcome of my big exhibition scarf I can't even put it into word's, The colours are just beautiful and I am so proud of the print. I now need to add my mixed media onto the top of it, Such as sewing my needle feltings onto it and adding my holographic heat transfer, Also using dissolvable fabric and angelina fibers to sew onto it. I still have my work cut out but the end product will be so so worth it. I got gave so many packets of angelina fibers today from my tutor it felt like Christmas!!

After I had printed my big scarf I had time to print one of my normal sized scarfs which I shall sell at my exhibition, The one I chose to print was the orange/pink coloured light silk scarf. I started by masking taping the fabric down. I used similar colours but not exactly the same as they were different shades and instead of doing my cells green I did them a coral colour for this scarf. Here are the pictures after each screen print although I failed to get one of the end product, However I know you shall see it in a future blog post.

I did not get a picture after printing the last screen so I am sorry about that. After I took this off the print table and hung it to dry I instantly fell in love with it, The way the pattern and colours move on the floaty silk amazed me. I am so happy with the work I have done today and I cant wait to produce more.

My to do list from tonight is...

- Sew my needle felting's onto my big scarf.

- Do more dissolveable fabric on the sewing machine.

- Use angelina fibers and interfacing to create more mixed media for my big scarf.

- Use my holographic heat transfer material on my big scarf.

- Print up my other smaller scarfs and dye more material.

- Buy Petri Dishes and Jar's

I hope you have enjoyed tonights blog post, Come back tomorrow to see what I've been getting up to tomorrow.

Thankyou for reading.

The Science Of Needle Felting

A few blog posts ago I wrote about how I experimented and created a sample of needle felting using the topic of my final major project and using artist influences, You can find that blog post here. If you have read that blog post 'Experimentation- Needle Felting' then you will already know that I really liked the outcome of my experimentation. During then and now (a few days) I have had a one to one tutorial with my tutor and we both discussed that the needle felting unit - a unit has set criteria which I am marked against - Is a unit I could improve after all my target is DDD. Taking this in mind I decided for my final major project exhibition, Instead of doing one major outcome, I would create a piece of installment art. Now I'm not giving too much away, But one idea I shall share right now is that I am going to create 6 or more needle felted bacterial petri dish's and place them in actual plastic petri dish's which I will buy off ebay (for under £10). 

Today I have created another two needle felting creations and in this blog post I shall talk and also show you through photo's how I did it.
If you have not read my previous blog post about needle felting and you are not familiar with needle felting you should check it out before reading this blog post, You can find it here.

Step one
Firstly, I gathered all my tools, just like before, except this time I used both the single needle handle, and the handle which fits four needles. By using more needles at once I saved time. 

Step two

On the photo below you can see the starting point of the needle felting, I created a base with white wool, Where as before I built up the base with different colours. I wanted to see which was the best technique. To start this base I simply made a ball of white wool the size of a small apple and used the large needle handle and needles which you can see in the back of this picture to needle felt the fibers together, I then added onto this to create a more flat petri dish looking shape.

The start of my second needle felted bacterial petri dish.

Step Three

After I had created my base I then used different colour wool and also yarn to add on top in different size circles, I did this by using thing strips of wool/yarn and wrapping each one around my finger to create a circle then transferring that to my needle felting and using the single needle I felted it carefully on top of the base I have already created. You can see what it looked like after this step in the photo below.

Added coloured circles to the needle felting.

I then added more wool and yarn circle's to my creation to make it more layered up aswell as organza. I also added more wool around the edge as I felt the edge was a little limp.

Step FourAfter I was happy with my needle felting it was time to add angelina fibers.

Angelina fibers Angelina fibers are little fiber's the size of strands of hair's - the one's I used are neon - They can be needle felted into felt and then ironed to fuse the fibers together. I decided to use these mainly to support my holographic colour scheme, not only that but without the angelina fibers the needle felting looks boring and plain but with them they look amazing, not to mention they look like little growths sprouting out of the felt.

Final Outcome

I also created another needle felted bacterial petri dish using darker colours as I did not want them all to look the same. I used a similar technique by using the larger needle holder but instead of creating a base and working on top of it, I built up the base with different dark colours and built on top of it with lighter colours. 

Final Outcome

The picture above shows the second needle felting I did today - Third one in total - I used different colour angelina fibers on this felting, As you can see it is green which supports the colour wool I have used.

In conclusion to this blog post I have found today very productive. I have really enjoyed doing the needle felting and using many different colours to create my outcomes. To improve on this I could try incorporating different techniques into my felting such as hand sewing, I could try this on the next needle felting I do.

If you have any questions or feedback for me comment below!!

Thankyou for reading.