Taking a few days out to play with some new ideas.
All my work is packed up ready to hang my upcoming solo textile exhibition next Wednesday in the local Kinsale library. Time to play in the studio. I find mono-printing somewhat addictive once I get started so this time it was all about the preparation before ink hit glass. I almost invested in one of those cool gelli plates, but decided to hold tough with my sheet of glass from an old fridge which has served me well. I wanted to try using stitched fabric samplers to print images and perhaps make them into unique cards.
First I dug out some simple cotton fabrics, I decided not to bother pressing them and leave the creases as part of the vintage look. I used machine embroidery on some, gathered others and then hand smocked a small sampler. I used to do a lot of smocking back in the day and was reminder how pleasantly soothing it is to stitch. I also had a spider web I had made using dissolvable fabric and machine stitching.
Armed with my fabric samplers I set up ink, brayer and paper and spent an enjoyable afternoon printing from them. I was delighted with the outcome, loads went in the bin, but isn’t that part of the fun! I left them all dry overnight and today chose the better ones, applied them to tri-fold blank die cut cards and then stitched through them with machine embroidery. Hey presto some unusual textile mono-printed cards!
Karima Rebecca Powell Artist 