Chintzzzzzzzzz

It is a long term goal to create som printed fabric along the lines of a William Morris print using layers of colours. One of the things I think fascinate me most about his textile dyeing Is the ability to create complex layers of colours using dip dyeing, printing and discharge dyeing using indigo to create multifaceted designs.

The interaction of one colour over another, placing of different mordant strengths are genius.

I’ve been messing about with these ideas for over a year now, slowly hoping to build a repertoire of skills to create something magical.

My first hurdle has been getting a intricate design onto fabric, so messing about with screen printing has been challenging, I finally relented and got a screen printing machine which makes thermal screen prints, this should now make it a lot easier to create layers.

My first attempt with this was to transfer a drawing from procreate onto fabric. I mordanted the fabric with tannins, and printed with an iron paste;

It took a few attempts to get the right amount of printing paste and not getting it to smudge everywhere.

I didn’t get my repeats quite right on the initial screen, so although its meant to be a repeatable pattern it isn’t quite, lesson learned for that one.

Next up I made a new screen and printed a rice paste resist over the main elements of the pattern so they wouldn’t take the next dye bath. This was then dipped in indigo.

I did around 4 dips but the resist started to degrade, but it worked well enough for messing about with.

The resist needs work but in principle the elements are there. This does have enough contrast to over print, so that’s the next step.