Goodbye the old...

Here's a quick roundup of December:

I made it to my last screenprinting night class for the term and managed to print a few tea-towels for Christmas...

I really enjoyed the class and hope to sign up again.

There were some very talented people on the course and it was so enjoyable to get out of the house for a few hours once a week to be creative with like minded spirits.

At the end of the session we had to wash our screens and wash away our designs *sob* (until next time I hope!)


Christmas entailed, home-picked holly from our neighbour,...

a P.Y.O. (pick your own) tree. And I mean literally pick your own. The lady selling them told me where the saw was and off the boys and I trotted (well I hobbled LOL), found a tree we liked and I had to saw it off!


It got it's fair share of decorations (I think next year we will need a bigger tree!)

I also did the odd Christmas market...

The boys both had Nativity plays. One was a sheep...

The other a king...

We had a pre-Christmas trip to friends near Cambridge. Dh gave us a little tour of the land of arches and bicycles...

And the bashing accomplished a new window/door on the homefront...

Happy New Year!

Bring it on, I'm almost ready!!!!

Snow snow go away...

...come back when I don't have night class 45 minutes drive away!!

I missed last week's class due to the snow and if things don't improve (i.e. the weather and my snow driving skills!) I'll be missing tomorrow night's class as well which is very sad to say the least. I had hoped to prepare a new screen last week, but no such luck, however I can show my design which uses 2 screens and offset register as I wanted each printed piece to be individual. I feel this particular design sums up my goals from the course. I didn't have these goals when I started the course, I just wanted to screenprint again, but the course allowed me to focus on 2 goals: one was to find focus (!) and the other was to use my drawing and mark-making to enhance the design i.e. that I would not just do an outline, but utilise the very essence of screenprinting: that every line or shape drawn or made and exposed on your screen becomes a printed line or shape on your fabric.

For the first screen I cut flower shapes out of black paper for a background and the second screen is a drawing I did using my love of bees as a starting point...

(I did the drawing first and then took that as inspiration for the background)

Here, I printed the second screen in 2 different colours offset as part of my test prints:


And here, I printed my screen on to pre-patterned fabric:


I am thinking of stretching some of these over frames to make artworks.



It's all very well printing fabrics, but I also want to be make them into useful items so these are some coin purses that I have made from my earlier test fabrics:


I look forward to continuing my screenprinting journey and perhaps finding focus :-)

Wordless Wednesday

Night-class-less Wednesday too!

Night Class

I have been taking a night class for the last few weeks in 'Screenprinted Textiles'. When I was at school I did 'Graphics' which included screenprinting on paper and I have dabbled with a few screenprints on fabrics at home thanks to my kind brother who provided me with screens, squeegees, inks and exposures!



In this class we have been experimenting with designs and techniques using several small images.



I have learnt to try and focus. I say try and focus as I am still struggling to focus LOL.



It has been a lot of fun and I have learnt a lot from our very cool teacher. (Mixing paint is not one of them though - I am useless LOL)



Our tutor brings along inspiration:




Just like the schools we are on half term break for a week. I have homework to do for the next time we are back at class: one big design that I need to have focused on :-)
Here is a start I have made:

Pink dinosaurs

I was running low on dinosaurs and fairies so did another screenprint session with my designs.

As I was painting them I found myself getting silly and painting dinosaurs orange and blue...




And pink!!!



I love printing my designs on already printed fabric...

And I love that our kitchen is slowly coming together.

Since taking this photo more progress has been made and my dream of a usable kitchen is becoming a reality!!!

Printing pics

There's a new computer in this house, hence being able to blog the hat. (Of course since making the sunhat, it's rained! I should have made an umbrella instead!!)

So now I can blog the screenprinting I did the other weekend...

Please note, it's a new computer, NOT a new camera hence the yukky photos, but this was some of what was printed:






Which became this:



And this:

And these prints:

Became these:

More to come, I'm sure.

*Sniff*

My computer is broken! I have to borrow DH's old and very yukky one to check email.
*sniff sniff* I liked my dear old computer. I guess I shall just have to sew instead :-)

On Sunday, I was feeling full of cold so decided to stay home (while DH and the boys went to visit Grandma) and screenprinted some fabric using the silkscreens my brother made up for me while I was in Cape Town. I really enjoyed the instant gratification you get from making a print. Then I painted the printed fabric and when I figure out how to load photos onto this horrible pc I'll show my efforts.

In the meantime, I found a photo from simply ages ago on this computer, of when DH and I used to first come here:



Gordale Scar if memory serves (taken on a gimmicky mini-mini digital camera)... And today is another beautiful sunny day in Yorkshire so I'm off to lie on the sofa and watch Wimbledon LOL.