Deconstructed Paisley

Although I've collected paisley fabs and often used them in quilts, I found I was somehow bored with some that have been in the collection for a long time, and they were among the fabrics I donated before my move, and traded at Fabric Traders in Sidney.

However right before the silk screening class with Susan Purney Mark, I bought a shower curtain with giant paisleys on it. I'm only sorry I had someone else do the hard labour of climbing up and hanging it before it occurred to me to pop it on the scanner.

I was particularly interested in the way several motifs meet, and based on that sketch I made this screen and printed it on pole-wrapped shibori from Susan's Colour Seduction workshop back in October. Of course this is the NEGATIVE space between the paisleys.

THOUGHT: Has anyone ever made a fabric really exploiting this? Wish I had signed up for Lily Kerns' QuiltU class on using PhotoShop on fabric. Oh well, (1) we don't have PhotoShop and (2) I am starting Filament Fantasy on Friday and that will keep me out of the bingo halls (as if!) and probably make more of a difference to my work.


And speaking of work, my hours are as follows:
through Jan 25: 33 hours
Feb 1: 34 hours
Feb 8: 28 hours
Feb 15: 37 hours
Feb 22: 40 hours

Q: When is ironing not torture?

A: When it's pressing fabrics I've dyed, painted, printed or otherwise manipulated!

Screenprinting Workshop

Yesterday I took Susan Purney Mark's silk screening workshop at Satin Moon.

This was fascinating and a good start.

Things that surprised me:

How much paint it takes!

And that it takes longer than I expected it to.

In fairness I suspect that with practice and planning things would go faster. We had a lot of fun playing around and experimenting.

The photo above shows a piece of pole wrapped shibori (made in Susan's Colour Seduction workshop in the fall) screen printed with a repeated motif inspired by the negative spaces in large paisley patterns.

What I did on my day off

... apart from cutting loose by setting the ironing board up in the living room and getting out an end table so I could sit in my favourite Poang chair by the window and enjoy snack and reading breaks ...

This is a 24 by 24 set of colour mixing samples, in preparation for the silk screening workshop this weekend. I have 24 pots of paint suitable for silkscreening on fabric, viz. Setacolor opaque and shimmer, and Lumiere. The table is supposed to show what happens if you mix each colour with every other colour. It takes longer to do than I expected, so I still have the 24 paint pots lined up in order on my window sill with a note on masking tape warning everyone not to mess with the order!

Not sure how effective it will be because the Setacolor opaque particularly tends to cover the colour underneath instead of blending with it. However blending all those colors would take even longer and be messier and use up a lot more paint. The Lumiere in particular are in tiny bottles. Once they are used up I plan to buy bigger pots, I can just see running out while silkscreening!

In any case the shimmery colours may not be the best on t-shirts, except I've just remembered a sleep top that would look perfect with something or other screened onto it, and that could be shimmery!

Practicing with the x-acto knife just now I cut a zigzag-arat.