Some days are just great. Good Friday was one of them. I woke up to sunshine, rolled out of bed to a quiet and warm campus, and hied to the printing studio for a day away from assignments and dance rehearsals. This time around I decided I should prewash, so I threw them in the night before and pulled from the dryer...a crinkled mess of fabrics. No amount of ironing or steam would remove the wrinkles, but as always, mother came to the rescue. She said that Grandma used to spritz her wrinkled fabrics with water and then roll them into logs before spreading them out to iron. It works like a charm! An hour or so later, with a little company from Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, I had a fresh stack of fabrics ready to print.
I printed three colorways from my artist statement screen from my show. It is the first color-on-white fabric that I have printed and liked. I can't wait to print a bunch more yardage experimenting with overlaying colors. For now, I have coral and coral over mint. The mint is quite subtle but adds texture and interest. You can just see it in the picture if you look closely on the right side. Next came the peach and mint colorways, pretty simple tone-on-tone. I have plans to print a panel or two of solid-colored bunting over these fabrics in white on the mint and coral on the peach.
Recently I had been struggling with my screens clogging up and needing to wash them after only a couple of pulls, but I called the helpline at BuyPermasetInks.com, and he suggested spritzing the screen with water in between pulls. This also worked like a charm. Yay for spritzing, and I only had to wash the screen when I got too distracted watching the movie or talking to my mom and didn't pull the next panel fast enough.
With new tips and tricks under my belt and a new fabric design, I am so pumped for designing a new line of quilts this summer. The fabric collection is growing, and I can't wait to dive into it!
