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.

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!