I wanted a gradation of colour from pale yellow ochre to dark green across the diagonal. I think it turned out quite well.

At the same time I also dyed another large piece of fabric a dark green.

After I’d finished painting the first piece of cloth I still had quite a bit of dye left over and it seemed to be a shame to just pour it down the sink so I did some stuff and dump dyeing. This piece turned out quite nicely. I stuffed a narrow strip of fabric into a large yoghurt pot and poured on the remains of the lightest yellow ochre dye followed by some of the green dye. I then just left it alone for about 2 hours. I do like these surprise pieces that you get this way.

The other pieces were just stuffed into the pots containing the remaining dye solutions and left to their own devices. I have two different fabrics on the go for dyeing at the moment. One lot is from IKEA and it produces the more striking markings. The fabric is crisper and the folds are more pronounced so the “ice crystal” results are much more noticeable. The other fabric is an unbleached muslin that I bought as an experiment. It shrinks a lot and doesn’t produce such nice markings when dyed. It’s also a pain to iron flat so I won’t be buying any more of it. It’s the final piece below. The subtle markings are quite nice, but it really isn’t a pleasure to work with.

I have dyed with this combination of blue and black dye before, but I don’t remember the colour being quite like this. Never mind I like the finished piece of fabric. I think the printing really pops out now. I was certainly surprised at how different the printing appears on the blue/grey background compared to the undyed fabric.

My only problem now is that I have no idea what to use the fabric for. I didn’t have any particular project in mind. It started out as a sample to try out the various screen printing techniques. I didn’t have very high expectations of the results. That it turned out so well (to my mind) is an unexpected bonus.

On these screens I have been using Jacquard printing ink made slightly less thick with Setacolor textile paint. I really like the consistency – it gives me the right amount of control and I can scoop up the extra easily too. Using Setacolor textile paint alone that was a problem as it is much runnier, but on my Speedball screen I was getting hardly any colour on the fabric using the Jacquard inks alone – which makes me think that a less dense mesh may be the answer for me. I may order some different size mesh for my Speedball screen. I’ve also using a shorter squeegee and doing two pulls across the screen – each half at a time. Maybe that has been making a difference too.

I’ve now ironed the piece to fix the inks and paint. I’m planning on dyeing the fabric tomorrow to get away from the white background. Someone else in the class dyed her fabric after printing and it worked well, so I’m hoping things turn out well for me too!

In the meantime I’ve taped up the thermofax screen that I bought and done some printing.

They are nothing very special. I was a bit disappointed with the screen. I felt that the placement of the leaves was a bit uninspiring. The actual image I thought I had chosen was better. So I was also rather uninspired with my printing and just filled up some space on the previous samples. The blotchiness of the printing is also not my fault. When I hold the screen up to the light there really aren’t that many holes for the ink to penetrate.

Still I learnt a few things from this experiment.

• It is only worth having a permanent screen of a design you are not going to tire of. I think I will quite quickly get bored of these leaves.
• Use something that hasn’t been done to death – ginkgo leaves, it turns out, are a popular theme.
• It is probably better to have just one image on the screen, if it is an identifiable object. It gives you more flexibility with the placement.

So now I just have to be patient and wait for my flour paste to dry. Then I can make my own design and will only have myself to blame if it’s nothing special.

Although I hadn’t registered the fact he does in fact sell the otherwise obsolete thermofax printing machines. Having become interested in the thermofax printing process and learning that the machines were no longer available due to the bankruptcy of the firm producing them, he joined forces with another company in Germany to start producing them again. Read the story in his own words here.

Günther’s site has a lot of useful information about various dyeing and printing processes, although some of it is in German only. Follow the links link at the top of the home page. He is also most helpful in answering questions and his replies arrive almost instantaneously. He seems to work all hours of the day and night. Orders are filled and shipped quickly too. I can highly recommend him to anyone looking for a supplier in Europe.

This is my original design made following the instructions in the article.

I transferred the design to freezer paper, cut out the right bits (not as easy as you might think – to cut out the correct pieces I mean) and then ironed it all onto the back of my frame:

Freezer paper is good for designs with floating bits like mine, but it’s quite a faff to get them ironed on – mine even went wrinkly on the frame as you can see, but that didn’t have negative effects on the printing, which surprised me.
These are printed using Jacquard Professional printing ink. This was my second attempt using the Jacquard ink. I used it for the first torn newspaper prints and found it a bit hard to use, being quite thick. After a bit of practice with thinner fabric paint I went back to it and found it easier to use.

The yellow background fabric might be familiar to some of you – even more use for the remains of an old bed sheet – I needed something quickly to do some more prints and it was to hand!

My conclusion for freezer paper stencils – good for some designs, but be sure it’s worth the effort.

My final printing results from the weekend were made using a plastic document sleeve. I didn’t have any tacky back (contact paper) or Mask-Ease so I used what I had in the house and fixed the plastic to the frame with masking tape. The design is hacked together from parts of a design from a much bigger stencil meant for stencilling walls Here I was using the Jacquard printing ink in yellow. The first one the frame moved a bit before I did the second pass so that it is a double image. Then I did another one and added some of the blue/purple leftovers of fabric paint using my finger and finally the whole lot got mixed up again in the last image.

This was one of my favourite results from the whole session over the weekend:

I like the idea of adding a bit of colour with your finger – but you only get to do this once unless you wash the screen between each print. Once the colours start mixing as in my final print above then the effect of finger blending is lost.

Another thing I learnt is that it is probably best to buy more colours of paint or ink for printing – I only bought red, blue, yellow and white, because I do all my dyeing with red, blue and yellow and I hadn’t realised that you can return the surplus ink to the pots – not such a good idea when you’ve been playing at mixing. I have a weird collection of tubs with cling film lids right now.

I’m looking forward to seeing what we get up to next week.

The first stencil was made by tearing shapes out of newspaper.

These are my very first ever screenprints using Jacquard Professional screen printing ink. I didn’t get on well with this ink to begin with – it is quite thick and I found it hard to get a good print, as you can see.

My next attempt was with another newspaper stencil. I just draw some shapes on the paper, inspired by the pattern on the T-shirt I was wearing at the time and cut them out with a craft knife.

These were printed using Setacolor opaque fabric paint. This is runnier and was easier to use for my baby steps. I got 6 good prints and could have gone on with more. I was amazed at how robust the newspaper stencils are.

And here is a larger image of my favourite print, in fact the first one I made before the paint started mixing.

Newspaper stencils are great for a quick one off print. They are amazingly robust. I could have got even more prints from the stencil, but I wanted to move on the next method.

The first stencils produce a positive image. In other words you print the image that you design and the background remains as is. We were supposed to do some negative printing with found objects. I didn’t have any found object that was thin enough, so I made another newspaper stencil. I reused a design that I had created for an activity on my C&G course. Here is the stencil:

And here are the prints I made using a mixture of yellow Jacquard screen printing ink and the mixed up remains of the Setacolor paint from the previous prints – a bluey purple diluted down with some white Setacolor paint. Here you can see my problem that I don’t get such good printing out to the edges of the frame. I have a squeegee that fits exactly into the frame across the narrower edge and I don’t get enough pressure on the edges. Still it produces some quite interesting effects. Uses a large amount of ink though.

The course outline sounds interesting and covers quite a variety of techniques:

Lesson One

• Preparing your materials and workspace
• The mechanics of printing
• Paper stencil screens

Lesson Two

• Found materials and other resists
• Finger blending
• Plastic stencil screens
• Bonus – discharge printing

Lesson Three

• Flour paste screens
• Preparing images for Thermofax screens
• Printing with Thermofax screens
• Printing yardage

Lesson Four

• Cheap and easy home-made frames
• Glue and paint screens
• Spray paint screens
• Bonus – drawing fluid and filler

The courses are also imho very good value for money. This one is costing me $37.

Just as well really when you see what the supplies are costing me and this is just part of the shopping list!

Luckily I don’t have to shop for everything on the supply list.