more silkscreen tutorial

I made a new silkscreen last weekend, for the tiki design and it came to me that I should add some notes on this process. I used regular embroidery stretcher bars a few inches larger than my design, flat thumb tacks, shipping tape and chiffon from the bridal aisle at J0-Ann's. Be sure to cut your chiffon large enough--this stuff frays like mad and you want a good grip with the tacks.

I stretched this the same way I do any fabric or canvas. Square your frame. (I usually place it in the upper corner of a door frame and whack it to match the right angle, turn it and whack again if it needs it--even if your house is older and not too square a door frame tends to stay fairly on the square and they're handy--no tools to find.)

Lay your fabric over the frame so it's even and pin the center top. Normally for embroidery I pin on the top of the frame. For this, however, I want the frame to lay flat when I put it face down on the fabric to be printed, so I pinned the tacks along the outside edge of the frame.

Check the grain and keeping it aligned along the inner edge of the top stretcher bar, pull the fabric taut and pin the center bottom. (This is more important for embroidery than this project.)
Then pin each center side. Now go back to the top and place a tack on each side of the center tack--maybe 1/2" apart. Pull the fabric taut each time. Keep going around, moving to the corners. Pin the corners last, folding the fabric (like putting on a bed sheet) and pinning it. Then I covered the tacks with tape, which helped corral some of the frayed chiffon edges.

I laid the frame fabric down on my printed design, centered it and traced the design with a fine Sharpie marker. This isn't going to affect your final design, just give you something to go by as you paint the screen.

I used Modge-Podge by Plaid for painting the design. I painted from both sides, but mostly from the front, holding the frame in my hand to make sure the wet-painted fabric side didn't touch anything.

Modge-Podge has always seemed to me to be an acrylic medium, but it dries a little harder than most. I had read somewhere it was good for this because it's more waterproof.

I used a small paint brush for details and a slightly larger one for background--just brushes I had on hand. I painted around the edges of the frame, working a bit to adhere the chiffon with this "glue" to the stretcher frame and to provide an edge for me to work with when spreading the paint.

Then I painted in the design areas I wished to block from the paint. (In this case the flower petals.) As I painted, I could see areas where the stuff covered, some areas I missed (hold it up to the light to check), and areas where the stuff pushed through to the back of the fabric (I turned it over and smoothed that out a bit). I wanted complete coverage but also fairly smooth coverage to allow the screen to lie really flat for printing.

Once I had it all painted, I set it fabric side up to dry for at least 48 hours before printing. I found a flexible squeegee (like an old credit card, a piece of flexible plastic or, if you have one, a squeegee) works best for spreading the paint for printing.

My designs for this project are fairly organic and I didn't worry about being terribly precise (which is good because I'm not good at that). I'd love to see what you do if you try this.

More Camp Quality--tutorial

I thought I'd share more of the design images for this year's Camp Quality project (more here) and write up a bit of a tutorial. I'm going to teach this at a meeting in a week or so and it helps me to write it out beforehand.

The top two images on the green were silkscreened using my homemade screen. I tacked good quality organza from J0-Ann's to a small stretcher frame, traced the design with a Sharpie, then filled in the flower petals and outer border with Modge-Podge. As I painted, the "screen" became all wavy and saggy and I didn't hold out much hope.

I let it dry 48 hours and it dried firm and straight so I gave it a go, using a small ruler as a "squeegee." I used cheap acrylics from Jo-Ann's for paint. I squirted a row of paint across the end (on the painted edge, not the open fabric) and pulled it across the open screen with my squeegee. It was partly okay--the squeegee was a bad choice but when I replaced the ruler with an old credit card, I got much nicer results--the card has some flex to it.

When I was done, I washed the screen in cool water. It got all saggy again, but tightened up nicely once dry. So, now I know I can't wash it to change colors and continue without letting it dry.

All of the rest of the imprints in the photos are made using freezer paper stencils. This is a fun technique that you can use to add images or words to anything you can paint (fill the open areas with glue and not paint and coat with gold foil). The paper works okay with felt, although it sticks much better to smooth cotton than it does to fuzzy felt.

Lay your fabric on an ironing surface right side up. Place the cut stencil, with the shiny side down. carefully on top, being sure to allow enough space for your desired margins. Press with a fairly hot iron until the plastic coating on the paper adheres to the fabric. You can't do this ahead of time and come back in a day or so to paint, but need to do it shortly before painting.

I use cheap acrylic paints and 5/$1 sponge brushes. I put some paint on an old, well washed foam meat tray (a paper plate, an old china or plastic plate, or palette paper would all work) and dab the tip of the brush into it. Then I dab the brush onto the open areas of the stencil, moving the brush up and down and not brushing it back and forth. Too much back and forth swiping and you'll pull the freezer paper away from the felt. Sometimes I'll gently swipe from the paper and onto the open fabric, but mostly it's up and down.

Don't use too much paint. Dip your brush in the paint and then tap it a couple of times on an empty area of the palette. A nice effect is to concentrate the paint around the edges of the stencil and let it fade a bit toward the center of the design area.

The row of brown tikis above are a freezer paper stencil pulled off of the design and ready to reuse; the design it was pulled from; two more stenciled designs, ready for the paper to be carefully pulled off for reuse; and a design in reverse.

For this one, I took the pieces I cut out of the stencils and carefully laid them onto my fabric in position, making sure the shiny side was down (this is important because otherwise it will stick to the iron). I pressed them into position and dabbed paint around them. I've pulled the mouth off so you can see the white fabric design that will show when the pieces are removed. I haven't tried to reuse these little bits.

Below are flowers, done in the same technique. The top two are freezer paper stencils with the paper ready to come off. The bottom left is a finished flower with the paper removed. And the bottom right is another reverse stencil. The lighter color paper will be removed to reveal the pink ground fabric.

To make a freezer paper stencil, pull off a piece of freezer paper (the kind with plastic on one side to protect your food) large enough for your stencil and a nice margin area. For a small design like this, I whack off a piece wide enough for my narrow measurement and then cut two or three pieces across the length of paper to get cut several stencils.

I put it plastic side down onto my design. I made several photocopies of the designs to the proper size. I just place the freezer paper onto the design and cut around the lines using an X-acto knife with a fine blade. I cut carefully so I can use the cut-out bits for reverse stencils.

The layers I work on are a clipboard, a piece of cardboard to protect the clipboard, the photocopy, the freezer paper. That's it. I have always been able to see clearly the photocopied line drawing through the freezer paper without a light box.

I've found I can cut three stencils from one photocopy before it falls apart from being cut. I get a better design if I just cut rather than trying to trace the design and then cut. If you're not comfortable using an X-acto knife, then trace the design and cut it out carefully with fine paper scissors.

Have fun!

silk screening?

I looked back through my posts and couldn't find a previous post about Camp Quality Illinois this year. So I hope this isn't reduntant--I was sure I'd mentioned this year's project.

Each year my EGA chapter teaches at this camp one morning--we design, kit and teach a project that can be done by children from 6 to 16, boys and girls both, with and without experience. It's kind of daunting but fun.

This year our day's theme is Hawai'ian Luau. Our chapter has on hand tins for our Indiana State Day event coming up and we decided to use them and develop a project that could be put into the cover. Since we have felt and I love working with felt, felt it is...

I used freezer paper stencils to create the positives of this hibiscus. The negatives were made by carefully ironing on the cut out bits--not too easy and the little pieces didn't stick well.I played around with some embroidery on the samples above. The top one is in the tin we'll use--it's just a bit large for the opening. We got a nice donation of perle cotton to use for the embroidery. My inclination is to give the children the stenciled fabric and some thread and let them do what they want--no set pattern or rules. I also plan to have extra felt on hand for the creative ones.

Below is a shot of the used stencils, set up for reuse. They should iron on a few times. I also decided to try my hand at silk screening the negative design. I read all I could find on it and checked out some silk screening supplies at J0-Ann's and then I bought some bridal chiffon, the finest I could find.

I tacked and taped it to stretcher bars and then traced my design with a Sharpie marker. I painted in the parts to remain white with Modge-Podge. I had read about someone else using this because it's more water resistant than some other media. (It was a while back that I read up on this and didn't keep any source material or printouts, just vague memories.)

I haven't tried it yet, but there's a long weekend coming up this weekend and I plan to give it a go and see what happens. Hopefully, the final silkscreened piece will look like the stenciled version on the bottom right and be easier to do in multiples. (Sadly, Camp Quality is always booked to the max with kids wanting to come---I generally estimate about 75 kits.)

I've also developed a tiki design for the less flowery stitchers. I think I'll wait and see how the silk screen does and, if it works, do that one as a silk screen. Any suggestions are welcome! Wish me luck!

I'm going on a computerless holiday from Thursday night through Monday! Mostly we'll be at home, hanging around, although one day we plan to visit with my family. (It's hard to find a day on a holiday weekend when both of our nurses are off work at the same time!)